He had one great advantage over Llysanorh'. The latter was wholly unprepared, believing he had to deal with a comet. This facilitated Ralph's movements.
He carefully insulated himself by sitting on a tall glass tripod. He then attached to his ears the telephone receivers that were connected with the induction balance,[13] which he had attached to one of the glass port-holes.
He then started to turn the glass wheel of the ultra-generator, connected to the outside aerials.
A terrible screaming sound came from the generator and the whole flyer shook. Ralph continued to turn the wheel quickly. The generator shrilled higher and higher, until the frequency had become so high that no sound could be heard. The vibrations had passed 35,000.
Ralph turned the wheel a few more notches and everything became pitch-dark over a space sixty kilometers in diameter.
As in his Switzerland exploit, two months before, Ralph's aerial on the space flyer due to the powerful action of his ultra-generator, attracted the ether so fast that it could not be replenished quickly enough. It acted much like an immense vacuum pump on the atmosphere.
Darkness spread over a large area as the inky fluid of the octopus blackens the sea. Both flyers became invisible to each other.
Ralph, however, pointed his machine on its former course and speeded it up.
Llysanorh', dismayed by the unexpected darkness, had brought his machine to a dead stop. He was almost frantic with terror and stood like one paralyzed, unable to think or to act.
Within a few minutes Ralph's induction balance caused his telephones to emit higher and higher notes, indicating, despite the pitch-black darkness, just how near he was to the other flyer.