I could see that to him his work was at once a plaything and a wonder. He must have been over twenty, but he talked like a lad of fifteen.
"It is the most wonderful thing in the world," he went on. "See what lives have been saved by the invention. You remember the burning of the Volturno? A man I know was on board that ship, and he told me what he felt when it caught fire, and how, in spite of his danger, his heart thrilled with wonder when he saw the vessels which had been summoned by wireless to their aid. Every one would have died an awful death but for this discovery. Besides, supposing we went to war, can't you see the advantage of it?"
"I don't know," I said. "It seems to me that it might be a great disadvantage. Supposing, for example, we went to war with France, and we wanted to send a message to one of our ships, the French would receive the message at one of their receiving stations, and they would know all our plans."
"I've made a special study of that," he said, with a laugh. "I daren't let you know how; it would be telling; but I believe I know the secret codes of nearly all the countries. Look here, you get one of these things fixed up, and I will come over and see whether you have got it right. I can put you up to all sorts of dodges. You will never be lonely if this thing really grips you."
I must confess that I caught some of the boy's enthusiasm, and when we returned that evening I brought with me the material for fixing up a kind of amateur installation. Although not scientifically inclined, the wonder of the thing appealed to me, and I reflected that during my lonely hours I could occupy myself with this marvellous discovery. Indeed, for many days afterwards I was engaged in carrying out what the boy had instructed me to do. I found what seemed to me a convenient spot on the cliff, close to my house, yet hidden from the gaze of any passer-by, and here I almost forgot my troubles in perfecting it. More than once, too, young Martin—for that was the name of the lad—came over to see me, and told me that I was getting on famously.
"I am afraid your affair is not powerful enough," he said; "but I will try and send a message to you. It will be an awful lark, won't it?"
By the time young Martin and I had met three times we had become quite friendly, and so eager was he about the work I was doing that he gave me a little book, which he himself had compiled, containing secret codes.
"I don't know whether I ought to do this," he laughed, "but really, you know, it is so fine. It is so interesting, too, and it was by the purest chance that I picked them up."
By the end of a fortnight I boasted to myself that I knew practically all young Martin could tell me about wireless telegraphy, and that I had assimilated all his boasted knowledge about codes. Although I was not a scientist, I had a voracious memory, and was not long in storing my mind with what, a few weeks before, had but little meaning to me, but was now full of mystery and wonder.
By the end of that time one of my old attacks came on, and I was too ill to care about anything. Indeed, when Prideaux and Lethbridge called on me I was too unwell to see either of them. For that matter, I had lost interest in everything. Day followed day, and I opened neither newspaper nor book, nor did I give a thought to what had so interested me since my first visit to that monument of Marconi's genius. What was going on in the outside world I neither knew nor cared. Once or twice I thought the end had come, and that I should never leave Father Abraham's hut alive.