CHAPTER XI. A CHEMICAL DEMONSTRATION.
Raffles Haw led the way through the front door, and crossing over thegravelled drive pushed open the outer door of the laboratory--the samethrough which the McIntyres had seen the packages conveyed from thewaggon. On passing through it Robert found that they were not reallywithin the building, but merely in a large bare ante-chamber, aroundthe walls of which were stacked the very objects which had aroused hiscuriosity and his father's speculations. All mystery had gone fromthem now, however, for while some were still wrapped in their sackclothcoverings, others had been undone, and revealed themselves as great pigsof lead.
"There is my raw material," said Raffles Haw carelessly, nodding at theheap. "Every Saturday I have a waggon-load sent up, which serves mefor a week, but we shall need to work double tides when Laura and Iare married, and we get our great schemes under way. I have to be verycareful about the quality of the lead, for, of course, every impurity isreproduced in the gold."
A heavy iron door led into the inner chamber. Haw unlocked it, but onlyto disclose a second one about five feet further on.
"This flooring is all disconnected at night," he remarked. "I have nodoubt that there is a good deal of gossip in the servants'-hall aboutthis sealed chamber, so I have to guard myself against some inquisitiveostler or too adventurous butler."
The inner door admitted them into the laboratory, a high, bare,whitewashed room with a glass roof. At one end was the furnace andboiler, the iron mouth of which was closed, though the fierce red lightbeat through the cracks, and a dull roar sounded through the building.On either side innumerable huge Leyden jars stood ranged in rows, tiertopping tier, while above them were columns of Voltaic cells. Robert'seyes, as he glanced around, lit on vast wheels, complicated networks ofwire, stands, test-tubes, coloured bottles, graduated glasses, Bunsenburners, porcelain insulators, and all the varied _debris_ of a chemicaland electrical workshop.
"Come across here," said Raffles Haw, picking his way among the heaps ofmetal, the coke, the packing-cases, and the carboys of acid. "Yoursis the first foot except my own which has ever penetrated to thisroom since the workmen left it. My servants carry the lead into theante-room, but come no further. The furnace can be cleaned and stokedfrom without. I employ a fellow to do nothing else. Now take a look inhere."
He threw open a door on the further side, and motioned to the youngartist to enter. The latter stood silent with one foot over thethreshold, staring in amazement around him. The room, which may havebeen some thirty feet square, was paved and walled with gold. Greatbrick-shaped ingots, closely packed, covered the whole floor, while onevery side they were reared up in compact barriers to the very ceiling.The single electric lamp which lighted the windowless chamber strucka dull, murky, yellow light from the vast piles of precious metal, andgleamed ruddily upon the golden floor.
"This is my treasure house," remarked the owner. "You see that I haverather an accumulation just now. My imports have been exceeding myexports. You can understand that I have other and more important dutieseven than the making of gold, just now. This is where I store my outputuntil I am ready to send it off. Every night almost I am in the habit ofsending a case of it to London. I employ seventeen brokers in its sale.Each thinks that he is the only one, and each is dying to know where Ican get such large quantities of virgin gold. They say that it is thepurest which comes into the market. The popular theory is, I believe,that I am a middleman acting on behalf of some new South African mine,which wishes to keep its whereabouts a secret. What value would you putupon the gold in this chamber? It ought to be worth something, for itrepresents nearly a week's work."
"Something fabulous, I have no doubt," said Robert, glancing round atthe yellow barriers. "Shall I say a hundred and fifty thousand pounds?"
"Oh dear me, it is surely worth very much more than that," cried RafflesHaw, laughing. "Let me see. Suppose that we put it at three ten anounce, which is nearly ten shillings under the mark. That makes,roughly, fifty-six pounds for a pound in weight. Now each of theseingots weighs thirty-six pounds, which brings their value to twothousand and a few odd pounds. There are five hundred ingots on each ofthese three sides of the room, but on the fourth there are only threehundred, on account of the door, but there cannot be less than twohundred on the floor, which gives us a rough total of two thousandingots. So you see, my dear boy, that any broker who could get thecontents of this chamber for four million pounds would be doing a nicelittle stroke of business."
"And a week's work!" gasped Robert. "It makes my head swim."
"You will follow me now when I repeat that none of the great schemeswhich I intend to simultaneously set in motion are at all likely tolanguish for want of funds. Now come into the laboratory with me and seehow it is done."
In the centre of the workroom was an instrument like a huge vice, withtwo large brass-coloured plates, and a great steel screw for bringingthem together. Numerous wires ran into these metal plates, and wereattached at the other end to the rows of dynamic machines. Beneath wasa glass stand, which was hollowed out in the centre into a succession oftroughs.
"You will soon understand all about it," said Raffles Haw, throwing offhis coat, and pulling on a smoke-stained and dirty linen jacket. "Wemust first stoke up a little." He put his weight on a pair of greatbellows, and an answering roar came from the furnace. "That will do. Themore heat the more electric force, and the quicker our task. Now for thelead! Just give me a hand in carrying it."
They lifted a dozen of the pigs of lead from the floor on to the glassstand, and having adjusted the plates on either side, Haw screwed up thehandle so as to hold them in position.
"It used in the early days to be a slow process," he remarked; "but nowthat I have immense facilities for my work it takes a very short time. Ihave now only to complete the connection in order to begin."
He took hold of a long glass lever which projected from among the wires,and drew it downwards. A sharp click was heard, followed by a loud,sparkling, crackling noise. Great spurts of flame sprang from the twoelectrodes, and the mass of lead was surrounded by an aureole of goldensparks, which hissed and snapped like pistol-shots. The air was filledwith the peculiar acid smell of ozone.
"The power there is immense," said Raffles Haw, superintending theprocess, with his watch upon the palm of his hand. "It would reduce anorganic substance to protyle instantly. It is well to understand themechanism thoroughly, for any mistake might be a grave matter for theoperator. You are dealing with gigantic forces. But you perceive thatthe lead is already beginning to turn."
Silvery dew-like drops had indeed begun to form upon the dull-colouredmass, and to drop with a tinkle and splash into the glass troughs.Slowly the lead melted away, like an icicle in the sun, the electrodesever closing upon it as it contracted, until they came together in thecentre, and a row of pools of quicksilver had taken the place of thesolid metal. Two smaller electrodes were plunged into the mercury, whichgradually curdled and solidified, until it had resumed the solid form,with a yellowish brassy shimmer.
"What lies in the moulds now is platinum," remarked Raffles Haw. "Wemust take it from the troughs and refix it in the large electrodes.So! Now we turn on the current again. You see that it gradually takes adarker and richer tint. Now I think that it is perfect." He drew up thelever, removed the electrodes, and there lay a dozen bricks of ruddysparkling gold.
"You see, according to our calculations, our morning's work has beenworth twenty-four thousand pounds, and it has not taken us more thantwenty minutes," remarked the alchemist, as he picked up the newly-madeingots, and threw them down among the others.
"We will devote one of them to experiment," said he, leaving the laststanding upon the glass insulator. "To the world it would seem anexpensive demonstration which cost two thousand pounds, but ourstandard, you see, is a different one. Now you will see me run throughthe whole gamut of metallic nature."
First of all men after the discoverer, Robert saw the gold mass, whenthe electro
des were again applied to it, change swiftly and successivelyto barium, to tin, to silver, to copper, to iron. He saw the long whiteelectric sparks change to crimson with the strontium, to purple with thepotassium, to yellow with the manganese. Then, finally, after a hundredtransformations, it disintegrated before his eyes, and lay as a littlemound of fluffy grey dust upon the glass table.
"And this is protyle," said Haw, passing his fingers through it. "Thechemist of the future may resolve it into further constituents, but tome it is the Ultima Thule."
"And now, Robert," he continued, after a pause, "I have shown you enoughto enable you to understand something of my system. This is the greatsecret. It is the secret which endows the man who knows it with sucha universal power as no man has ever enjoyed since the world was made.This secret it is the dearest wish of my heart to use for good, andI swear to you, Robert McIntyre, that if I thought it would tend toanything but good I would have done with it for ever. No, I wouldneither use it myself nor would any other man learn it from my lips. Iswear it by all that is holy and solemn!"
His eyes flashed as he spoke, and his voice quivered with emotion.Standing, pale and lanky, amid his electrodes and his retorts, there wasstill something majestic about this man, who, amid all his stupendousgood fortune, could still keep his moral sense undazzled by the glitterof his gold. Robert's weak nature had never before realised the strengthwhich lay in those thin, firm lips and earnest eyes.
"Surely in your hands, Mr. Haw, nothing but good can come of it," hesaid.
"I hope not--I pray not--most earnestly do I pray not. I have done foryou, Robert, what I might not have done for my own brother had I one,and I have done it because I believe and hope that you are a man whowould not use this power, should you inherit it, for selfish ends.But even now I have not told you all. There is one link which I havewithheld from you, and which shall be withheld from you while I live.But look at this chest, Robert."
He led him to a great iron-clamped chest which stood in the corner, and,throwing it open, he took from it a small case of carved ivory.
"Inside this," he said, "I have left a paper which makes clear anythingwhich is still hidden from you. Should anything happen to me youwill always be able to inherit my powers, and to continue my plansby following the directions which are there expressed. And now,"he continued, throwing his casket back again into the box, "I shallfrequently require your help, but I do not think it will be necessarythis morning. I have already taken up too much of your time. If you aregoing back to Elmdene I wish that you would tell Laura that I shall bewith her in the afternoon."