an explosion at all. The wind hurled me into collision with him, and we
stood clinging to one another.

"Try and get back--to my bungalow," I bawled in his ear. He did not hear
me, and shouted something about "three martyrs--science," and also
something about "not much good." At the time he laboured under the
impression that his three attendants had perished in the whirlwind.
Happily this was incorrect. Directly he had left for my bungalow they had
gone off to the public-house in Lympne to discuss the question of the
furnaces over some trivial refreshment.

I repeated my suggestion of getting back to my bungalow, and this time he
understood. We clung arm-in-arm and started, and managed at last to reach
the shelter of as much roof as was left to me. For a space we sat in
arm-chairs and panted. All the windows were broken, and the lighter
articles of furniture were in great disorder, but no irrevocable damage
was done. Happily the kitchen door had stood the pressure upon it, so that
all my crockery and cooking materials had survived. The oil stove was
still burning, and I put on the water to boil again for tea. And that
prepared, I could turn on Cavor for his explanation.

"Quite correct," he insisted; "quite correct. I've done it, and it's all
right."

"But," I protested. "All right! Why, there can't be a rick standing, or a
fence or a thatched roof undamaged for twenty miles round...."

"It's all right--_really_. I didn't, of course, foresee this little upset.
My mind was preoccupied with another problem, and I'm apt to disregard
these practical side issues. But it's all right--"