"Here! Suppose I turn the water into the thing?"

"Don't!" shouted the inventor wildly, battering at the door with his
fists. "It would send us into kingdom come the second it touched!
Don't stand there gaping, Griggs! Help me smash down this door! We
must get out, man! We must get the women out! We must warn the
neighborhood! Smash her, Griggs! Smash her! Smash the door!"

"Hawkins," I said, resignedly, as a vicious "sizzzz" announced the
evolution of a great puff of red gas, "we can never do it in two
minutes. Better not attract the rest of the household by your racket.
They may possibly escape. Stop!"

"And stay here and be blown to blazes?" cried Hawkins. "No, sir! Down
she goes!"

He seized a stool and dealt a crashing blow upon the panel. It
splintered. He raised the stool again, and I could hear footsteps
hurrying from below. I opened my mouth to shout a warning, and----

Well, I don't know that I can describe my sensations with any
accuracy, vivid as they were at the time.

Some resistless force lifted me from the floor and propelled me toward
the half shattered door. Dimly I noted that the same thing had happened
to Hawkins. For the tiniest fraction of a second he seemed to be floating
horizontally in the air. Then I felt my head collide with wood; the door
parted, and I shot through the opening.

I saw the hallway before me; I remember observing with vague wonder