VII.
The three men looked each other in the eye. Swift forgot the girl. Theprofessor forgot the balloon. Mr. Statis Ticks had forgotten his wifeand seven children; but this was no unusual circumstance. The aeronaut,having less awe to the cubic inch in his make-up than his companions,was the first to speak.
"What does this gol-darned thing mean, anyhow?"
"Hush!" said Swift, recoiling.
But Mr. Statis Ticks bared his head before the extinct city.
"It means," said the student, solemnly, "the presumptuous impiety of manand the vengeance of Almighty God! It means," he added, slowly,"incalculable volts of uncontrollable electricity acting and acted uponby nascent oxygen and hydrogen. It means that Russell, the greatestproducer of the electro-motor power on the continent, has been smittenby its servant. It means that man has outstripped his knowledge of thismysterious fluid, and has ignorantly converted through millions ofinadequate conductors and faultily insulated wires the terrible, theunfathomed power of electricity into light and heat and force; thatRussell was gradually becoming a gigantic storage battery, charged andsurcharged, until the time when its electrostatic capacity had beencriminally abused, the negative forces of the heavens concentrated overthe obnoxious territory, and a discharge unparalleled in electricalexperiments restored nature's equilibrium, and consumed in oneunspeakable spark Russell and its blind inhabitants."
"My God! Can this happen to Boston?" cried the professor, trembling.
"Or New York?" asked Swift.
"Or to Chicago?" added the girl, faintly. She had revived and waslooking about her in a ghastly way. "My mother used to live there."
This truly feminine view of a scientific subject passed unnoticed.
Mr. Ticks stood with his uncovered head yet bent before the annihilatedcity. He spread his two hands out, palms to the ground, with a gestureof indescribable significance, and made no reply.
Black, vitreous masses of melted conglomerate spread before them. Wherehad stood the city, the sloping plain offered no obstruction to theview. Russell, to the last splinter of iron or of wood, to the last chipof brick or stone, to the last bone of the last corpse, was fused into aterrible warning to the world by the rebellion of its own electricity.
"I guess none of 'em knew what struck 'em!" The professor hazarded thishumane suggestion, feeling that the oppressive silence should be brokensomehow.
"The Kremmler chair was nothing to it," said Swift.
"You are right," answered Mr. Ticks, gravely. "That was the only boon.So sudden and intense was the heat that men were ashes and the city wasmolten before nerves could convey sensation to the brain. In thefraction of a second, in the twinkling of a thought it was not, for Godtook it."
The four breathed heavily. Again Mr. Ticks broke the silence. He laidhis hand paternally upon the young lady's shoulder.
"It is very fortunate, Miss Magnet, that you were the only thoroughlyinsulated person in this whole territory. The wooden boat, the invertedglasses saved you. You only had a normal amount of electricity in you.You were a poor conductor, otherwise you would have evaporated throughthe law of induction."
"I can't stand this any longer, or I'll be a fit candidate for an idiotasylum!" blurted out the professor finally. "I am dying for a chaw."
He cast impatient glances at a trackless, desolated grade a mile away.This grave of a great trunk line extended beyond their view.
The four had not stirred from where they had been dropped by theballoon. To do so they would have had to pick their way cautiously.Russell was like an extinct volcano. She was yet hot. But she did notsmoke, as one might have expected. There were no smouldering embers leftto produce smoke. Combustion had been instantaneous and complete.
But the travellers had no need to go sight-seeing. Everywhere was thesame blackened, cooling, ferruginous slag. To see one square yard was tosee the whole. The appalling thing about the effect was the cause.Civilization, ever ready with revengeful thrusts, as if protestingagainst the advance of science, had produced a new accident, a uniquedisaster.
Swift made an automatic motion for his watch.
"I must go," he said; "I must get my despatch to the _Planet_ in timefor the evening edition. We will have a scoop on the whole world."
"I'm your man," said the professor. "We can foot it to the nearesttelegraph station in four hours."
"Ah, I forgot," said Swift. "That will lose me the four o'clock edition.I'll have to hold the wire all night if I can get it. I'll wire such anaccount as no other paper will ever get. There isn't a minute to lose!"It was then that Mr. Statis Ticks, realizing, whether from calculationor from sympathy, that Miss Magnet could make no such forced march, andseeing that the girl only held herself together under the tension of thegreat excitement, gallantly proposed to remain by her and join the restof the party that evening by the first team that could be chartered.
But the young lady unexpectedly refused the proposition. Her wholenature shrank from spending another minute in that blasted spot. It wastherefore arranged, much to Mr. Ticks' disappointment (for he had hopedto add to his copious stock of mental notes by further investigation onthe ground), that the girl should accompany them, as far as she wasable, down the railroad, away from the lost city.
After a drink of lake water they started off, Swift supporting MissMagnet on the one side and Mr. Ticks on the other, the professorstalking ahead.
"Even the lake tastes of it," said Swift. "Ugh!"
"Pass a current of electricity through a tumbler of water and there willbe detected the same flavor, though not so strong," answered Mr. Ticks.
The party made two miles slowly. Despite all her Western courage andenergy, Insula Magnet tottered by the way. To divert her attention, Mr.Ticks led her on to talk about the electrical wonders of the extinctcity. The girl enlarged in a sad way upon its many and its curious uses.The baby carriages, she said, took their helpless occupants on anunaided turn around a large oval track in the park. They went by storagebattery. One electrician could take the place of twenty nurses andcontrol the power. Once in a while a baby died suddenly. The doctorsinvariably pronounced it a case of heart failure. Washing was nowentirely done by electrical apparatus, likewise ironing and cooking. Thegreat American problem of the "hired girl," Russell considered herselfto have solved.
An ingenious arrangement had been recently devised to have theelectricity supply the place of valet-de-chambre, but only a few hadused it. One or two thought it a hardship to be aroused from bedwhether one would or no, to be washed and summarily dressed by animplacable power that performed its set tasks stolidly in spite ofanathemas and threats. Can a man abuse his electrical valet? Let him tryit if he dare.
The phonograph was in universal use. _The Phonograph Daily_ was arival--one cannot call it sheet, rather wax cylinder--just started, andthe din made by those loquacious instruments was worse than the chatterof monkeys in the cocoanut groves of New Guinea.
Electric heaters warmed the rooms. Electric paper lighted them with asuffused and generous glow. No one used stairs. Electric elevators didall the arduous house-climbing. No one made calls any more, for it wasan easy matter to ring your acquaintance up and see her in herdrawing-room while you talked to her. Women made an elaborate toilet forsuch interviews. It was soon expected that conversation would beentirely dispensed with, for with a sensitive galvanoscope attached tothe brain at a certain point, that was to be patented, the minutestcurrent of thought could be registered upon a cylinder.
Authors would only need to fix their attention upon the plot; thedelicate instrument would record it indelibly for their hearers'gratification.
The well-appointed electric coupe was always ready. There was no worryabout oats and spavin and glanders. Miss Magnet told of many other newcontrivances that electricity had now to perform. The development ofthis power through the new dynamos made it possible for men in Russellto dispense utterly with work. You went so far as to put five cents inthe slot at any one of a hundred street corners
, and your shoes wereelectrically polished to a patent leather shine. There was no morenight, for carbon and incandescent lamps had stabbed the night so thatany hovel was brighter than the average day. The girl stopped for breathand sat down. She was exhausted. Swift cheered her tenderly. But Mr.Ticks dryly remarked:
"_Better a city without electricity than electricity without a city!_"
The girl smiled at this heresy, and nodded her head emphatically in afeeble way. She could hardly move.
It was at this stage that Mr. Ticks seemed overcome with uneasiness. Hegot up and sat down again. He kicked the earth. He examined the charredsleepers. He dug for the lost rails. Then he awoke from his occupationwith a sudden start as if rudely shaken from a dream. Swift was used tohis colleague's idiosyncrasies. Besides he did not now notice them. Hewas otherwise occupied. But the professor could stand these performancesno longer, and with rude emphasis he burst forth:
"Dang it, man, if you've got anything on your darned mind, jerk it out,if not--" Professor Ariel's manners had become decadent in proportion tothe time that had elapsed since he and the _High Tariff_ had partedcompany.
"I--I--" interrupted Mr. Ticks, with a start. "The fact is, I cannot asyet account for that deadly atmosphere that enveloped this section. Whatwas in it to kill? Its effect on me was unlike any other experience thatI can recall. It is my inconsolable regret that it is not classified inmy mind."
"Did you know," asked Miss Magnet, suddenly, "that a new landimprovement company was started this spring for raising four crops ayear? All the farms for twenty miles around were bought up. They spentover a million dollars in laying wires in the ground throughout thewhole country, on the theory that these voltaic currents applied tograin and fruit and vegetables would excite such crops to quickerverdure and maturity. The company said that it was an experiment on agrand scale; but they were much laughed at. I said it was a dangerousscheme, and nearly lost my position in consequence. I have heard,though, that it was a great success."
During this recital Mr. Ticks' eyes glistened with excitement.
"Ah!" he said, "I am under a thousand obligations to you, young lady. Ofcourse I could not conceive of such a thing, not knowing the facts. Itis all plain now. The first discharge, enormous and deadly as it was,was not enough. This network of wires attracted the surplus electricity.The soil must be of such a quality as to convert this territory into anenormous secondary battery. The subsoil must have acted as a monstrousinsulator. I shall subject it to a minute analysis. Are we on the vergeof a new electrical discovery? Was this deadly phenomenon a hithertounknown property of the electrical fluid? For to walk within the deadline was like walking into a saturated Leyden jar. Its effect must havealso been to devitalize the oxygen and nitrogen of the atmosphere. Thevictim was electrified and suffocated to death at the same instant. Atlast I understand the complexity of my astonishing symptoms. Thevibratory storm that we so narrowly escaped was not due to barometricdepression, but came as a responsive consequence of this surchargedarea. When that wire ladder was finally cut off and fell; when itreached a certain position; when one end touched the negative, the otherthe positive pole, then the current became completed and this giganticbattery was discharged. Had we not been rising at the rate of a hundredfeet a second we should have been fused after the fashion of theinhabitants of this ghastly territory. The discharge once having takenplace, this country is again free to man and beast."
"Gosh!" was all that the subdued professor could say.
And now the four travellers lifted up their eyes, and saw before them onthe horizon black moving, indistinct masses, as if brobdignagian locustswere swarming up the track. Here were the hosts of careworn men,plunging impatiently toward the lost city for the news that theunaccountable and malignant power had hitherto denied them. The fourneeded courage to meet this unrestrained and desperate mob. Who werethese in the van? What pallid faces, what haggard eyes, what piteousgestures! Alas, they were the mourners of the dead! Love had wrestledits way ahead of plunder, and grief had outrun greed. In the front rankswere women wailing and panting desperately to keep pace with unmannedmen.
This woeful sight aroused Mr. Ticks. He raised his hands towards thelost city after the manner of an inspired prophet, and there and thenuttered the following impassioned warning to humanity, which Swift tookdown in shorthand in the borrowed notebook:
"Woe unto you that multiply currents you cannot control! Woe unto youthat net your country with the trap of sudden death! Woe unto you thattoss innocent men on broken wires; that surprise your victims in thecounting-house, the home, the street, with destructive bolts! Woe untoyou that undermine and overcast the land with a mysterious foe! Behold!your dead shall rise in serried phalanx against you, and their mournersshall rend you to pieces!"
The only burst of eloquence known to the biography of this prosaic mansubsided into apathetic silence. His hands dropped heavily at his sides.He turned away from Russell and beheld its blackened site no more.
The throng was now upon them. Multitudes of wild faces asked questionsof the four. Who would answer these? Who could tell the terrible truth?The professor paled and walked behind Swift. Mr. Ticks shrank at theawful responsibility, and took refuge behind the professor. Swift haltedand trembled.
"Go," he said to the girl. "Go! Only a woman can."
And she went. She stepped out alone--a few paces, and stood quite still.Instinctively the masses stopped before her. Eyes, sleepless withweeping and waiting, riveted themselves upon eyes that were stillhaunted with a portentous experience. The girl stretched out one hand inmute appeal, and then burst into tears and sobbed:
"Don't! Don't look like that! Oh, you poor people! I am the only one!"
Awestruck and silently, men and women enveloped her and ministered untoher. It was the advance guard of the Red Cross Society, led by ClaraBarton, that sheltered this derelict and messenger of woe.
Set upon by a thousand men, Mr. Ticks and the professor told what theyknew. Some cursed and doubted and pressed on. Some bowed their heads andturned back. But Swift, who had recognized Dubbs driving two powerfulhorses and unreeling two telegraph wires, one for the special use ofthe Associated Press and the other for the _Planet_, accosted him, andsent the most famous message known to the American newspaper world sincethe close of the civil war.
It was a long message, and we can only give the more importantheadlines:
Russell is no more!
Thirty thousand people killed by one unparalleled electric discharge.
The gigantic spark fuses the whole city into one indistinguishable molten slag.
Miraculous escape of one lady. The sole survivor.
Thrilling rescue by the _Planet_ reporters in a special balloon.
The reporters complete the circuit and touch off an over-charged storage battery with a circumference of one hundred and fifty miles.
The territory that was impassable now open.
Fifty thousand people race toward the lost city.
Russell perished of her own electricity.
Civilization's new and formidable danger.
* * * * *
Three months later, on a secular evening, the upholstered pews of anuptown church were filled with a fashionable audience. As the churchbells tolled eight the organ pealed forth the wedding march. It wasnoticed with much comment that the vast audience-room was lighted withgas, the new electric lights being dispensed with. The bride, MissInsula Magnet, had especially desired this.
When the solemn ceremony was ended, and when, amid the craning of necks,the bride and groom were walking down the white-ribboned aisle, adiversion happened that arrested the newly wedded couple. But this wasnot construed into an ill-omen. A diminutive messenger boy, with asuper-experienced countenance, had met them half way to the vestibule,and, with a saucy smile, held up an envelope to Mr. Swift's face.
"It's half an hour late. Wires burned out. Guess
you'll read it now!"
Mr. Statis Ticks, who, although well and worthily married, officiated insome unprecedented capacity as best man, gave Professor Ariel, one ofthe ushers, an intelligent glance. The latter, being the happy possessorof a new balloon (which he ingenuously called _Reciprocity_), suppliedto him by the always generous _Planet_, and fully elated by his presentposition, answered with a broad wink. Mr. Swift, unconscious of thethousands that were standing in their seats to look at him, and of thegeneral buzz of interest, tore open the colored envelope withreportorial haste, and read as follows. It was cabled from his chief,the proprietor of the _Planet_, now unavoidably detained in England:
"_Congratulations. Advance of one thousand a year. Report after two months' bliss. God bless you!_"