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To the reverberation of smashed steel and blinding fulguration the big sphere was split open and Mila with Karospina vanished in the nocturnal gulf. Gerald, stunned by the catastrophe, threw himself down, expecting a mighty explosion; the ebon darkness was appalling after the scintillating rain of fire.
I, Prince Igorovitch Karospina, tell you that I have discovered the secret of the arts never dreamed of by Wagner and his futile, painted music on a painted stage; I have gone, not to art, but to nature colour, fire, the elements. The eye is keener than the ear, vision is easier comprehended than tone. Ah! I have you interested at last." He began walking as if to overtake a missing idea.
Karospina proudly directed its course over the azure route, and once he passed Gerald at a dangerously low curve earthward, shouting: "The Spiral! The Spiral!" It was his last utterance; possibly through some flaw in the mechanism, the chariot zig-zagged and then drove straight upon the reservoir.
Fuming at the delay, he was forced to console himself with smoking and listening to the stories told of Karospina and his miracles. They were exaggerated. Karospina here, Karospina there the name of this modern magician was hummed everywhere in the brisk October air. A little man who occupied the seat with Shannon informed him that he knew some one who had worked for Karospina.
Not knowing whether the signs in the skies might be construed as blasphemous, and lost in fathomless admiration for the marvellous power of the wizard, Gerald sought to get closer to Karospina and Mila. But wedged in by uniformed men, and the darkness thick as an Egyptian plague, he despairingly awaited the apotheosis. His eyes were sated by the miracles of harmonies noiseless harmonies.
Angrily darting at him and catching his left shoulder in a vicelike grip, Karospina growled: "You fool, how dare you mock something you know nothing of?" He shook his guest roughly. "Uncle, uncle, be patient! Tell Mr. Shannon, and he, too, will become a believer. I believe in you. I believe in him, Mr. Shannon. Don't sneer! Tell him, uncle."
Then he went into the stone corridor and coughed as a hint that he was up. Not a sound but the persistent fall at a distance of some heavy metallic substance. It must be Karospina in his workshop, at his rockets, pinwheels, torpedoes, and firecrackers. What a singular change in a bloodthirsty revolutionist. And how childish! Had he squandered his millions on futile experimentings?
There was no sun, and the twilight of a slow yellow day in late September would soon, in complicity with the fog, leave him totally adrift on this remote strand he could hear the curving fall and hiss of the breakers, the monotonous rumour of the sea. So he was determined to face Karospina, even if he had to force his way into the house.
Instinctively the hands of the two indulged in a long pressure, and Mila quickly adjusted the lamp. But Gerald still stood at the window a prey to astonishment, terror, stupefaction. Karospina entered. His face was slightly flushed and in his eyes there burned the sombre fire of the fanatic. Triumphantly he regarded his young friend.
"Yes, but only as an image, an illusion," ejaculated the unhappy lover, "not in reality." "As she is," imperiously answered Karospina, and seizing Mila by the arm, said, "Come!" She threw a kiss to Gerald and in her eyes were tears. He saw them and could have wept himself.
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