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It is said to render a whisper audible at a distance of 1000 yards; but its very sensitiveness is a drawback, since it gathers up extraneous sounds. To the same category belongs the 'aerophone, which may be described as a gigantic tympanum, vibrated by a piston working in a cylinder of compressed air, which is regulated by the vibrations of the sound to be magnified.
Then came a sound of crashing walls, and for a moment it ceased, only to rise again still clearer and more triumphant. Again a crash a seething hiss and the instrument was silent, for its twin was shattered. Shattered also was the fair shape that held the spirit of Stella. Again and again Morris spoke eagerly, entreatingly, but the aerophone was dumb.
Presently, however, he discovered the figure of Stella seated in her accustomed place by the desolate-looking stone altar, whereon stood the box containing the aerophone that they had used in their experiments.
If that were so, what was the use of his wonderful discovery, for who could ensure a sympathetic correspondent? And yet the fact remained that when, in their playmate days, he understood his cousin Mary, and when her quiet, indolent nature had been deeply moved by the shock of the news of her mother's peril, the aerophone had worked.
Layard or I," thought Stella sadly to herself, as she called back the answering verse. At length the light began to fade, and for that day their experiments were over. In token of their conclusion twice Stella rang the electric warning bell which was attached to the aerophone, and in some mysterious manner caused the bell of its twin instrument to ring also.
What did it matter if he were unfitted for that which he could no longer do? His work was finished. There it stood before him in that box, stamped "Monk's aerophone. The Twin. No. 3412." No; he had but one ambition left. To pierce the curtain of thick night and behold her who was lost to him; her who loved him as man had been seldom loved.
The chief item on the news page was headed: AEROPHONE MESSAGE FROM CARVILLE; OVER HELIGOLAND; ALARM IN GERMANY. Copyright by The London "Morning." The special article of the day was headed: "The Napoleon of the Air; a Character Sketch," and the leader, signed by Lord Cholme himself, was a pæan, in stilted journalese, in praise of the Morning's enterprise in encouraging invention.
The record of the following weeks was very full, but almost entirely concerned brief mention of other things, such as her father's health excepted with full and accurate notes and descriptions of the aerophone experiments.
There is nothing for you to do, and I feel that you are wasting your time and that you hate it. Tell the truth. Don't you long to be back at Monksland, working at that aerophone?" "I should be glad to get on with my experiments, but I don't like leaving you," he answered. "But you had better leave me for a while.
The scene in the Dead Church, the agonies of farewell; he summoned them detail by detail, word by word; her looks, the changes of her expression, the movements of her hands and eyes and lips; he counted and pictured each precious souvenir. The sound of her last sentences also, as the blind, senseless aerophone had rendered them just before the end, one by one they were repeated in his brain.