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The masses of lenses, batteries, tubes, and coils which constituted the new instrument had been set up in the lens-house, and it was with this invention that Clewe had succeeded in producing that new form of light which would not only penetrate any material substance, but illuminate and render transparent everything through which it passed, and which would, it was hoped, extend itself into the earth to a depth only limited by the electric power used to generate it.
The first news that came to him on his recent return to America had been the tale told by Sammy Block, of the man in the air who had been endeavoring to peer down into his lens-house, and he had heard of other attempts of this kind.
It was not difficult for Roland Clewe to convince himself that this was very good advice. He resolved to shut up his lens-house entirely for a time, and think no more of the great work he had done within it, but apply himself to something which he had long neglected, and which would be a distraction and a recreation to his disappointed mind.
As soon as I see that my invention will act as I want it to act, I shall have you in the lens-house with me. We may not be able to do very much at first, but when I really begin to do anything I want both of us to see it done." There was no flooring in that part of the lens-house where the machine was set up, for Clewe wished his new light to operate directly upon the earth.
In a large building, not far from the lens-house in which Roland Clewe had pursued the experiments which had come to such a disappointing conclusion, there was a piece of mechanism which interested its inventor more than any other of his works, excepting of course the photic borer.
When sometimes in his moments of reflection he felt obliged to consider the wonders of applied electricity, and give them their due place in comparison with the great problem he expected to solve, he had his moments of doubt. But these moments did not come frequently. The day would arrive when from his lens-house there would be promulgated a great discovery which would astonish the world.
"Have you anything to say that you did not telegraph? How is your wife?" "She's all right," was the answer. "And there's nothin' happened, except, night before last, a man tried to look into your lens-house." "How did he do that?" exclaimed Clewe, suddenly turning upon his companion. "I am amazed! Did he use a ladder?" Old Samuel grinned.
"You don't tell me that!" cried Clewe. "Did you stay there and let him look down into my lens-house?" The old man laughed. "I let him look down," said he, "but he didn't see nothin'. I was laughin' at him all the time he was at work.
Each of them was expected to turn out something which would revolutionize something or other in this world, but it was to his lens-house that Roland Clewe gave, in these days, his special attention. Here a great enterprise was soon to begin, more important in his eyes than anything else which had engaged human endeavor.
"And that makes you pale," said Clewe. "Are you afraid that if I begin work with the Artesian ray I shall become so interested in it that I shall forget our friends up there in the North? There is no danger. No matter what I might be doing with the ray, I can disconnect the batteries in an instant, lock up the lens-house, and in the next half-hour start for St. John's.
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