Jim looked at him in amazement. “To-night?”
“Yes. Or rather, the experiment will be at dawn. If successful, this continent at least will be rid of the menace.”
Jim’s amazement turned to incredulity and a sudden fear gripped him. Had the strain of the past few weeks unbalanced the professor’s mind?
“But surely you can’t hope to wipe them out with one tube. Why, it would take hundreds.”
“No, only one. You see, I am going to place the tube in the center of the circle and direct its rays outward toward the circumference in a swinging radius.”
Whereupon, for a moment, Jim’s fear seemed confirmed.
“But, good God!” he exclaimed. “It couldn’t possibly be that powerful, could it?”
“I think it can be made to be,” was Professor Wentworth’s grave assurance. “The greatest power we know in the universe is radiant energy, which reaches us from the sun and the stars, traveling at the speed of light.”
“Like light rays, these heat rays can be focused, directed; and the beta rays of the cathode, traveling at the same velocity, can be made to ride these rays of radiant heat much as electric power rides radio waves. The giant, in short, can be made, to carry the dwarf, with his deadly little weapon. That, at least, is the theory I am acting on.”