(May that be soon! thought Loseis.) Aloud she said: “How pretty!”
The most astonishing present came, as was most fitting, from the bottom of the bag. From a little card-board box Gault took a shining nickel cube, having a sort of cup at one end, covered with glass. When you pressed a spring in the cube, light most miraculously appeared behind the glass. Loseis took it gingerly in her hands, gazing at it with wide and wondering eyes. The four red girls drew back, a little afraid.
“Of course you can’t get the full effect of it until dark,” said Gault.
“This is the electric light of which I have read,” said Loseis in a hushed voice. “How strange and beautiful!”
“There’s a box of extra batteries when it gives out,” said the trader.
Batteries meant nothing to Loseis. The gleaming torch had laid a spell upon her imagination. She switched it on and off. How strange, how strange this little light that she summoned and dismissed with a touch of her finger, like a fairy servant!
“If you went through the Slavi village some night with that in your hand it would create a sensation,” said Gault laughing.
His laughter jarred on Loseis. “No use frightening them for nothing,” she said. “I might need it some time.”
In the beginning it would have irked Loseis very much to receive these presents from Gault, but now she felt no qualms. He is counting on getting it back many times over, she thought.
During the course of the afternoon, Loseis and her girls were astonished to see Gault’s men climbing to the roof of Blackburn’s House. Alongside the chimney they affixed a tall pole. When it was up, wires were strung from it to the top of the flagpole in the middle of the little plaza. Loseis’ curiosity could no longer contain itself. She went across to ask what they were doing.