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He must be alone, for never does he allow any one to enter while he is preparing his deflagrator. As I pass the jetty I notice that the tug is moored in its accustomed place. Here I judge it prudent to walk behind the first row of pillars and approach the laboratory laterally which will enable me to see whether anybody is with him.
"Well, you did not succeed, Simon Hart, and as far as this is concerned," he added, flourishing the phial, "no one else has succeeded, or ever will succeed." As I conjectured, he has not, then, made known the composition of his deflagrator. Looking him straight in the face, I reply: "You know who I am, Thomas Roch, but do you know in whose place you are?" "In my own place!" he cries.
As to the deflagrator liquid, Thomas Roch has a certain number of phials of it, and I know only too well will not refuse to help Ker Karraje's pirates with it. During these preparations night has come on. Only the lamps of the Beehive are lighted and a semi-obscurity reigns in the cavern. I return to my cell.
In his hand is a little glass phial containing a bluish, oily liquid that congeals almost as soon as it comes in contact with the air. He pours one drop on the entrance of the hole, and draws back, but not with undue haste. It takes a certain time about thirty-five seconds, I reckon before the combination of the fulgurator and deflagrator is effected.
"My invention?" he cried. "My deflagrator?" And his growing animation plainly indicated the imminence of the fit that Gaydon had been apprehensive about, and which questions of this character invariably brought on. "How much will you give me for it how much?" continued Roch. "How much how much?" "Ten million dollars," replied Gaydon. "Ten millions! Ten millions!
It will be admitted that these words are not exactly calculated to reassure me. However, a lot of things may happen ere then. I have learned one good thing from this conversation, and that is that if Thomas Roch has sold his explosive to Ker Karraje and Co., he has at any rate, kept the secret of his deflagrator, without which the explosive is of no more value than the dust of the highway.
I regret this, inasmuch as the inventor will indubitably be the object of pressing solicitations, and as Engineer Serko will employ every means in his power to obtain the composition of the explosive and deflagrator, of which he will make such detestable use during future piratical exploits.
I pass hour after hour in my cell, meditating, hoping, despairing, following in fancy the voyage of my little barrel, tossed about at the mercy of the currents and whose chances of being picked up, I fear, are becoming fainter each day, and killing time by writing my diary, which will probably not survive me. Thomas Roch is constantly occupied in his laboratory manufacturing his deflagrator.
As to the nature of the explosive and of the deflagrator, the elements of which the latter was composed, their manufacture, and the way in which they were employed, he preserved complete silence, and all attempts to worm the secret out of him remained ineffectual.
I must open his eyes to the fact that he will never be able to enjoy his millions, that he is a prisoner in Back Cup, and will never be allowed to leave it, any more than I shall. Yes, I will make an appeal to his sentiments of humanity, and point out to him what frightful misfortunes he will be responsible for if he does not keep the secret of his deflagrator."
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