“Melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.”
“But how did Dr. Syx turn the flying atoms against his enemies?” I asked.
“In a very simple manner. He had a mirror mounted so that it could be turned in any direction, and would shunt the stream of metallic atoms, heated by their friction with the air, towards any desired point. When the attack came he raised this machine above the level of the roof and swept the mob to a lustrous, if expensive, death.”
“And the light at night—”
“Was the shining of the heated atoms, not luminous enough to be visible in broad day, for which reason the engine never worked at night, and the stream of volatilized artemisium was never set flowing at full moon, when the lunar globe is above the horizon only during the hours of darkness.”
“I see,” I said, “whence came the nuggets on the mountain. Some of the atoms, owing to the resistance of the air, fell short and settled in the form of impalpable dust until the winds and rains collected and compacted them in the cracks and crevices of the rocks.”
“That was it, of course.”
“And now,” I added, my amazement at the success of Hall’s experiments and the accuracy of his deductions increasing every moment, “do you say that you have also discovered the means employed by Dr. Syx to obtain artemisium from the moon?”
“Not only that,” replied my friend, “but within the next few minutes I shall have the pleasure of presenting to you a button of moon metal, fresh from the veins of Artemis herself.”