“Eh!—oh, I daresay—it is a toy with which I can amuse myself; but you forget that before I colonized Melnos, I had battled all over the world, and thus expended a good deal of my Baresark fit.”
“And now it comes again!”
“The last upleaping of the flame, my boy,” said Justinian sadly; “and then death. But there, I talk so much about myself, that you must think me egotistical. What about that electric light I wish to try?”
“Alexandros and Gurt are fitting it up on the platform.”
“Good! but say Gurt and Alexandros in future. An Englishman goes before every one else.”
“How patriotic you are, uncle! Yet you have forsaken England.”
“England was an unjust stepmother to me, but absence makes the heart grow fonder, and, in spite of my residence here, I have as patriotic a spirit as any of your jingoists, who shout War! war! war! on the least provocation. Come, let us go and look at this search light on the terrace.”
Justinian, during the last few years, had dabbled considerably in electric matters, and had sent Alexandros to England in order to learn all about the science. Alexandros, keen-witted in all things, had soon picked up all that was necessary, and was quite an accomplished electrician; so when he returned to Melnos, he brought with him, by Justinian’s instructions, all machines necessary for the production of the light. The powerful engine for working the dynamo was placed at the back of the Acropolis, under the eye of the Demarch himself, and from this centre the wires were laid to the tunnel and the western pass. Thus the machine, being, so to speak, in the heart of the island, was safe from being captured by enemies, and the lighting of both places was quite under the control of Alexandros. The Demarch had also a third apparatus rigged up on the terrace, in order to make a trial of the power of the light, which was to be tried that night; for Justinian wished everything to be in thorough working order against the arrival of Alcibiades and his army.
While they were examining the electric apparatus on the terrace in front of the Acropolis, Helena, in company with Dick and Zoe, came to them in a great state of excitement.
“Papa, give me the key of the tunnel, for Crispin says the boat has arrived from Syra with letters!”