“I know.” The professor was not as calm as he pretended. “We have released some of their actinic rays captured by the negative, in prying loose our excess silver. Later I shall repeat the process and capture some of that vapor for analysis. At present, let us have a look at the negative already treated.”
He lifted the anode from the solution now, removed the negative, and held it up. A smile of satisfaction broke over his face, followed by a shudder.
“There you are, Jim! Have a look!”
Jim looked, with Joan peering over his shoulder, and his pulses tingled. It was a clear shot of that scattering half-circle of fiery termites, taken after he got away and swept back over them.
“Say, that’s wonderful!” he exclaimed.
“Wonderful—but horrible!” echoed Joan.
“I’ll admit they’re not much on looks,” laughed Carter. “But their homely maps are worth a lot to me—ten thousand dollars, in fact!”
He told her why, and what he proposed to do with the money, and Joan thought it a very good idea.
While this was taking place, Professor Wentworth was re-developing the rest of the negatives.
At last all had been salvaged, even those taken in the terrific heat over that weird glass city out there, and Jim was preparing to bear them back to Overton in triumph.