“I think it must have been,” answered Dorothy. “If, as I imagine, we have an unknown gas here, it is probably one of the products left behind from the metal destroyed by the terrific force used by the man. When the substance that gave the force, energy, or whatever you call it, escaped through the broken valve of the cigarette case, this gas was formed from the changed metal and, as it was lighter than the air, some of it rose and filled the shade, the rest floated upward and out through some crevice. When the man destroyed the Alaska or any of the other vessels, the same thing probably occurred—the metal of the ship changed to a gas which floated up into the air with extreme rapidity. The gas must be to air as oil is to water, that is, it can’t diffuse or mix with it, any more than oil can mix with water. Otherwise it wouldn’t have stayed all these months in the lamp shade.”
Just then Tom came towards us with a glass tube, a foot long and an inch or two wide, in his hand. In each end was sealed a bit of silvery metal.
“Platinum,” I said, as I looked at them.
“Yes,” said Tom laughing, “Mrs. Rosnosky taught you to know platinum when you see it. Just look through this.”
He held the tube before us, and the same magic bending of the lines showed as we gazed. The tube was filled with the gas that I had seen in the shade above.
“That’s as pretty a piece of work as I ever did,” said Tom approvingly. “Transferred it without allowing practically a particle of air to get in. Now we’re ready to try the current on it, and then the spectroscope.”
Rembrandt might well have painted the picture that I beheld, to hang beside the “Lesson in Anatomy” that dominates the old Museum at the Hague. A striking group of four bent above the shining tubes and polished mountings of the spectroscope. Tom, eager, with his fine lean face showing the highest power of receptivity to new ideas, mouth mobile but firm, with an ever present tendency towards an upward lift of the corners; Hamerly, careful thoughtful scholar, in our college slang “a little on the grind type,” extremely bald, his glasses perched judicially on his rather prominent nose, his face showing the lines of deep and strong thought; Swenton, faithful and efficient follower, a man who would always be led, would never spring by any conceivable chance from the narrow channels where his lot had chained him; Dorothy, Maxima et Optima, now commanding by reason of her swift flying intellect, now yielding to her dreams as she had an hour or two ago in the hansom cab, and, when yielding, most womanly, most thoroughly feminine of her sex. Faceted like a diamond, she shone upon the world through every facet, and every line, plane and angle showed a new beauty, a new grace.
The four stood eagerly intent upon the little tube before them, as they connected it with a huge coil which stood near. That done, everything was ready to throw the switch which would send the electric current leaping from one platinum pole to another, penetrating the gas in the tube, heating it, changing its action, forcing it to submit to the current’s tremendous force.
“All ready?” asked Tom, as he straightened up from the last adjustment. “Swenton, you turn off the lights and I’ll put on the current here.”
As the lights went out, and we heard the sound of the throwing of the switch, Dorothy stepped back by me. A low buzz grew swiftly in intensity, and then a simultaneous cry broke from us all. Within the tube a soft blue came slowly from out the dark, the blue of early dawn on quiet waters, as we gazed it turned darker, more brilliant; now it was the deep, steel blue of the biting autumn day, now the deep, blue black of velvet tropic night. Every change, every hue was lighted by the rarest and most exquisite effulgence man could conceive. No glory bound to earth it seemed, rather an unearthly brilliancy, perhaps such radiance as led the three kings, Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar, to the manger where the young child lay. It awed us all.