“It's going!” he exclaimed. “I've got current--it's good for a while, anyhow. Now--now for the test!”
For a moment he leaned heavily against the concrete bench to which the apparatus was clamped. Already the day had drawn close to its end. The glow of evening had begun to fade a trifle, along the distant skyline; and beyond the Palisades a dull purple pall was settling down.
By the dim light that filtered through the doorway, Beatrice looked at his deep-lined, bearded face, now reeking with sweat and grimed with dust and coal. An ugly face--but not to her. For through that mask she read the dominance, the driving force, the courage of this versatile, unconquerable man.
“Well,” suddenly laughed Stern, with a strange accent in his voice, “well then, here goes for the operator in the Eiffel Tower, eh?”
Again he glanced keenly, in the failing light, at the apparatus there before him.
“She'll do, I guess,” judged he, slipping on the rusted head-receiver. He laid his hand upon the key and tried a few tentative dots and dashes.
Breathless, the girl watched, daring no longer to question him. In the dielectric, the green sparks and spurts of living flame began to crackle and to hiss like living spirits of an unknown power.
Stern, feeling again harnessed to his touch the life-force of the world that once had been, exulted with a wild emotion. Yet, science-worshiper that he was, something of reverent awe tinged the keen triumph. A strange gleam dwelt within his eyes; and through his lips the breath came quick as he flung his very being into this supreme experiment.
He reached for the ondometer. Carefully, slowly, he “tuned up” the wave-lengths; up, up to five thousand metres, then back again; he ran the whole gamut of the wireless scale.
Out, ever out into the thickening gloom, across the void and vacancy of the dead world, he flung his lightnings in a wild appeal. His face grew hard and eager.