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_ In less than a week after the engagement of Roland Clewe and
Margaret Raleigh work on the great machine which was to generate
the Artesian ray had so far progressed that it was possible to
make some preliminary experiments with it. Although Clewe was
sorry to think of the very undesirable companion which Samuel
Block had carried with him into the polar regions, he could not
but feel a certain satisfaction when he reflected that there was
now no danger of Rovinski gaining any knowledge of the momentous
operations which he had in hand in Sardis. He had had frequent
telegrams from Sammy, but no trouble of any kind had yet arisen.
It was true that the time for trouble, if there were to be any,
had probably not yet arrived, but Clewe could not afford to
disturb his mind with anticipations of disagreeable things which
might happen.
The masses of lenses, batteries, tubes, and coils which
constituted the new instrument had been set up in the
lens-house, and it was with this invention that Clewe had
succeeded in producing that new form of light which would not
only penetrate any material substance, but illuminate and render
transparent everything through which it passed, and which would,
it was hoped, extend itself into the earth to a depth only
limited by the electric power used to generate it.
Margaret was very anxious to be present at the first experiment,
but Clewe was not willing that this should be.
"It is almost certain," he said, "that there will be failures at
first, not caused perhaps by any radical defects in the
apparatus, but by some minor fault in some part of it. This
almost always happens in a new machine, and then there are
uninteresting work and depressing waiting. As soon as I see that
my invention will act as I want it to act, I shall have you in
the lens-house with me. We may not be able to do very much at
first, but when I really begin to do anything I want both of us
to see it done."
There was no flooring in that part of the lens-house where the
machine was set up, for Clewe wished his new light to operate
directly upon the earth. At about eight feet above the ground
was the opening through which the Artesian ray would pass
perpendicularly downward whenever the lever should be moved
which would connect the main electric current.
When all was ready, Clewe sent every one, even Bryce, the
master-workman, from the room. If his invention should totally
fail, he wanted no one but himself to witness that failure; but if
it should succeed, or even give promise of doing so, he would
be glad to have the eyes of his trusted associates witness that
success. When the doors were shut and locked, Clewe moved a
lever, and a disk of light three feet in diameter immediately
appeared upon the ground. It was a colorless light, but it
seemed to give a more vivid hue to everything it shone upon--such
as the little stones, a piece of wood half embedded in the earth,
grains of sand, and pieces of mortar. In a few seconds, however,
these things all disappeared, and there revealed itself to the
eyes of Clewe a perfectly smooth surface of brown earth. This
continued for some little time, now and then a rounded or a
flattened stone appearing in it, and then gradually fading away.
As Clewe stared intently down upon the illuminated space, the
brown earth seemed to melt and disappear, and he gazed upon a
surface of fine sand, dark or yellowish, thickly interspersed
with gravel-stones. This appearance changed, and a large rounded
stone was seen almost in the centre of the glowing disk. The
worn and smooth surface of the stone faded away, and he beheld
what looked like a split section of a cobble-stone. Then it
disappeared altogether, and there was another flat surface of
gravel and sand.
Between himself and the illuminated space on which he gazed--his
breath quick and his eyes widely distended--there seemed to be
nothing at all. To all appearances he was looking into a
cylindrical hole a few feet deep. Everything between the bottom
of this hole and himself was invisible; the light had made
intervening substances transparent, and had deprived them of
color and outlines. It was as though he looked through air.
Then his eyes fell upon the sides of this cylindrical opening,
and these, illuminated, but not otherwise acted upon by the
volume of Artesian rays, showed, in all their true colors and
forms, everything which went to make up the sides of the bright
cavity into which he looked. He saw the various strata of clay,
sand, gravel, exactly as he would have seen them in a circular
hole cut accurately and smoothly into the earth. No stone or
lump protruded from the side of this apparent excavation, the
inner surface of which was as smooth as if it had been cut down
with a sharp instrument.
Clewe was frightened. Was it possible that this could be an
imaginary cavity into which he was looking? He drew back; he was
about to put out one foot to feel if it were really solid ground
upon which this light was pouring, but he refrained. He got a
long stick, and with it touched the centre of the light. What he
felt was hard and solid; the end of the stick seemed to melt, and
this startled him. He pulled back the stick--he could go on no
further by himself. He must have somebody in here with him; he
must have the testimony of some other eyes; he needed the company
of a man with a cool and steady brain.
He ran to the door and called Bryce. When the
master-workman had entered and the door had been locked behind
him, he exclaimed, "How pale you are! Does it work?"
"I think so," said Clewe; "but perhaps I am crazy and only
imagine it. You see that circular patch of light upon the ground
there? I want you to go close to it and look down upon it, and
tell me what you see."
Bryce stepped quickly to the illuminated space. He looked down
at it; then he approached nearer; then he carefully placed his
feet by its edge and leaned over further, gazing intently
downward, and he exclaimed, "Good heavens! How did you make
the hole?"
At that moment he heard a groan, and, looking across the
illuminated space, he saw Clewe tottering. In the next moment he
was stretched upon the ground in a dead faint.
When Bryce had hurried to the side of his employer and had thrown
a pitcher of water over him, it was not long before Clewe
revived. In answer to Bryce's inquiries he simply replied that
he supposed he had been too much excited by the success of his
work.
"You see," said he, "that was not a hole at all that you were
looking into; it was the solid earth made transparent by the
Artesian ray. The thing works perfectly. Please step to that
lever and turn it off. I can stand no more at present."
Bryce moved the lever, and the light upon the ground disappeared.
He approached the place where it had been; it was nothing but
common earth. He put his foot upon it; he stamped; it was as
solid as any other part of the State.
"And yet I have looked down into it," he ejaculated, "at least
half a dozen feet!"
When Bryce turned and went back to Clewe, he too was pale.
"I do not wonder you fainted," said he. "I do not believe it was
what you saw that upset you; it was what you expected to see
--wasn't that it?"
Clewe nodded in an indefinite way. "We won't talk about it now,"
said he. "I don't want any more experiments to-day. We will
cover up the instrument and go."
When Roland Clewe reached his room, he sat down in the
arm-chair to think. He had made a grand and wonderful success,
but it was not upon that that his mind was now fixed. It was
upon the casual and accidental effect of the work of his
invention, of which he had never dreamed. Bryce had made a great
mistake in thinking that it was not what Roland Clewe had seen,
but what he had expected to see, which had caused him to drop
insensible. It was what he had seen.
When the master-workman had approached the lighted space upon the
ground, Clewe stood opposite to him, a little distance from the
apparatus. As Bryce looked down, he leaned forward more and
more, until the greater part of his body was directly over the
lighted space. Looking at him, Clewe was startled, amazed, and
horrified to find all that portion of his person which projected
itself into the limits of the light had entirely disappeared, and
that he was gazing upon a section of a man's trunk, brightly
illuminated, and displayed in all its internal colors and
outlines. Such a sight was enough to take away the senses of any
man, and he did not wonder that he had fainted.
"Now," said he to himself, "all the time that I was looking into
that apparent hole, never thinking that in order to see down into
it I was obliged to project a portion of myself into the line of
the Artesian ray, that portion of me was transparent, invisible.
If Bryce had come in! and then"--as the thought came into his
mind his heart stopped beating--"if Margaret had been there!"
For an hour he sat in his chair, racking his brain.
"She must see the working of the ray," he said. "I must tell her
of my success. She must see it as soon as possible. It is cruel
to keep her waiting. But how shall I manage it? How shall I
shield her from the slightest possibility of what happened to me?
Heavens!" he exclaimed, "if she had been there!"
After a time he determined that before any further experiments
should take place he would build a circular screen, a little
room, which should entirely surround the space on which the
Artesian ray was operated. Only one person at a time should be
allowed to enter this screened apartment, which should then be
closed. It would make no difference if one should become
invisible, provided there was no one else to know it.
It was on the evening of the next day that Margaret beheld the
action of the Artesian ray. She greatly objected at first to
going inside of the screened space by herself, and urged Roland
to accompany her; but this he stoutly refused to do, assuring her
that it was essential for but one person at a time to view the
action of the ray. She demurred a good deal, but at last
consented to allow herself to be shut up within the screen.
What Margaret saw was different from the gradual excavation which
had revealed itself before the eyes of Roland. She looked
immediately into a hole nearly ten feet deep. The action of the
apparatus was such that the power of penetration gained by the ray
during its operation at any time was retained, so that when the
current was shut off the photic boring ceased, and recommenced when
the batteries were again put into action at the point where it had
left off. The moment Margaret looked down she gave a little cry,
and started back against the screen. She was afraid she would fall
in.
"Roland," she exclaimed, "you don't mean to say that this is not
really an opening into the earth?"
He was near her on the other side of the screen, and he explained
to her the action of the light. Over and over she asked him to
come inside and tell her what it was she saw, but he always
refused.
"The bottom is beautifully smooth and gray," she exclaimed; "what
is that?"
"Sand," said Roland.
"And now it is white, like a piece of pottery," she exclaimed.
"That is white clay," said he.
"Don't you want to take my place," said she, "if you will not
come with me?"
"No," said Roland. "Look down as long as you wish; I know pretty
well what you will see for some time to come. Has there been any
change?"
"The bottom is still white," she replied, "but it is glittering."
"That is white sand," said he. "The Artesian well which supplies
the works revealed to me long ago the character of the soil at
this spot, so that for a hundred feet or more I know what we may
expect to see."
She came out hurriedly. "When you begin to speak of wells," she
said, "I am frightened. If I should see water, I should lose my
head." She sat down and put her hand before her eyes. "My brain
is dazzled," she said. "I don't feel strong enough to believe
what I have seen."
Roland shut off the current and opened the screen. "Come here,
Margaret," he said; "this is the spot upon which the light was
shining. I think it will do you good to look at it. Tread upon
it; it will help to reassure you that the things about us are
real."
Margaret was silent for a few moments, and then, approaching
Roland, she took him by both hands. "You have succeeded," said
she; "you are the greatest discoverer of this age!"
"My dear Margaret," he interrupted, quickly, "do not let us talk
in that way; we have only just begun to work. Above all things,
do not let us get excited. If everything works properly, it will
not be long before I can send the Artesian ray down into depths
with which I am not acquainted--how far I do not know--but we
must wait and see what is the utmost we can do. When we have
reached that point, it will be in order to hoist our flags and
blow our trumpets. I hope it will not be long before the light
descends so deep that we shall be obliged to use a telescope."
"And will it not be possible, Roland," Margaret said, earnestly,
"that we shall ever look down into the earth together? When the
light gets beyond the depth to which people have dug and bored, I
shall never want to stand there alone behind the screen and see
what next shall show itself."
"That screen is an awkward affair," said Roland. "Perhaps I may
think of a method by which it can be done away with, and by which
we can stand side by side and look down as far into the depths of
the earth as our Artesian ray can be induced to bore." _
Read next: CHAPTER X - "LAKE SHIVER"
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