THE TELAUTOMATON
Devilishly, while the light-bombs flared, the telautomaton sped relentlessly toward its mark.
We strained our eyes at the Sybarite. Would they never awake to their danger? Was the wireless operator asleep or off duty? Would our own operator be unable to warn them in time?
Then we looked back to the deadly new weapon of modern war science. Nothing now could stop it.
Kennedy was putting every inch of speed into the boat which he had commandeered.
“As a race it’s hopeless,” he gritted, bending ahead over the wheel as if the boat were a thing that could be urged on. “What they are doing is to use the Hertzian waves to actuate relays on the torpedo. The wireless carries impulses so tuned that they release power carried by the machine itself. The thing that has kept the telautomaton back while wireless telegraphy has gone ahead so fast is that in wireless we have been able to discard coherers and relays and use detectors and microphones in their places. But in telautomatics you have to keep the coherer. That has been the barrier. The coherer until recently has been spasmodic, until we got the mercury steel disk coherer—and now this one. See how she works—if only it could be working for us instead of against us!”
On sped the destroyer. It was now only a matter of seconds when it would be directed squarely at the yacht. In our excitement we shouted, forgetting that it was of no use, that they would neither hear nor, most likely, know what it was we meant.
Paquita’s words rang in my ears. Was there nothing that could be done?
Just then we saw a sailor rush frantically and haul in a boat that was fastened to a boom extending from the yacht’s side.
Then another and another ran toward the first. They had realized at last our warning was intended for them. The deck was now alive and faintly over the water we could hear them shouting in frantic excitement, as they worked to escape destruction coming at them now at express train speed.