"No, I wouldn't descend yet in this calm for as many dollars as we are feet high. We're safe enough here. Look up, man! Look up! Shut your eyes. That's best!"
But Mr. Ticks pugnaciously returned to his question. What was a little matter of falling ten thousand feet or so? A fact startling and valuable was at stake and at hand.
"It was just a quarter of ten," answered Miss Magnet, in a low, horror-stricken tone. "I was writing. Suddenly a bitter vapor enveloped everything. There was no wind, no sun, no clouds, only this dense, strange atmosphere. It prostrated me. There were a number of boats near me. These were all of the new patent. They were steel. I saw great balls of fire dance from boat to boat. Then there came from the city a light such as I never saw before. It flashed like an enormous meteor, like an incandescent flame. It enveloped Russell. I was scorched even where I was by the flash. I heard a hissing sound like water on melted iron. And then—"
"And then?" persisted Mr. Ticks in a kind of rapture.
"And then I must have fainted away. When I came to there was no city, only masses of blackness and—and—Oh, the boats! The people! They were all gone! Not capsized—not drowning—but gone. There were no boats. There were no people. There wasn't even a dead body to keep me company. I, only I, was left, living and alone upon the hissing water.... When I was able I rowed back. The shore looked horrible and ridged, as if molten lead had been poured into it. When I came nearer an awful heat and a deadly odor overcame me. I had barely strength to row back and anchor again. Then the mist settled everywhere except where I was." The girl stopped for a moment, breathless.
"I couldn't see anything. It was hot, and then it was cold. I tried to eat my luncheon. I tried to get some sleep. I called and called for help. I couldn't tell night from day. I can't say whether it was four or five days. I said five. I must have been faint a good deal. The worst thing was being alone. I expected to die. I got pretty weak.... Then I saw the balloon." The girl bowed the face which she could not hide, and sobbed at her own dreadful story.
Swift was greatly moved. "Miss Magnet," he said gently, putting her head upon his shoulder. "I think you had better rest. You are tired out. This is different, you know. You needn't when you get safely down." The girl gave him a grateful glance and obeyed him quietly.
"How did she escape?" soliloquized Mr. Ticks, loud enough to be overheard.
"Oh, I don't know—don't ask me—unless it was that I was in a wooden boat. All the rest on the lake go by storage battery and are made of steel. Mine is the only old-fashioned boat, but I was always afraid. Everybody laughed at me, but I did what I do at home. I cut off the legs of a chair and fixed them in glass tumblers. I always sit in my office on glass tumblers. My bed rests on glass tumblers, too. It's a non-conductor, you know. I used to get shocked every day. Everybody got shocked in Russell, but they pretended not to mind it."
"But, Miss Magnet, do you know what is the cause of Russell's fate? of this deadly atmosphere beneath us?"