Jack had observed the apparent scantiness of population on this vast globe, which was now explained. “I wouldn’t like to trust our people with such a faculty,” he said frankly. “Nobody would feel safe!”
“Your people are traveling another route than ours,” replied Lamara. “But they will reach and perhaps pass the degree in which we are. Among all the myriad myriads of worlds, no two are alike. You bear the burdens of many!”
“What an irresistible army you could raise!” he muttered. “You could conquer all the earths that surround the sun!”
Lamara laughed. “It would make me happier to help one man of another earth to conquer himself!” she answered. “But you may see an event which will show you, better than any words of mine, the fruit of such attempts and ambitions. But I didn’t bring you here for that!”
She was silent, and Jack was obscurely conscious of a tension in the atmosphere, more subtle than that of electricity, which strung his mental faculties to a high pitch. His attention was involuntarily drawn to the fountain.
“You have been deceived by a false mirror,” said Lamara; “now you shall be instructed by a true one. There is no magic here; the bending of the rays obeys a natural law. You will see the reflection of a reality which is taking place at this moment. But do not speak while it passes.”
As she ceased, the darkness of the mirror became light, and there was painted upon it a fleeting stream of strange sights which Jack’s eyes could not clearly interpret; the effect was as if they had leaped into space, and were passing through it with the speed of light. In a moment there had flashed across the surface the vision of an unimagined and formidable earth, ruddy and sinister; it was gone, and now appeared the interior of a room of severe but pleasing proportions, fitted with the tables and shelves of a laboratory. A woman sat at the table, with an instrument before her. She was in an attitude of deep meditation. Her face, as she sat thus, was fully revealed; but Jack had known her at the first glance. He made a sudden movement; but Lamara’s hand on his arm reminded him of the injunction, and he was mute.
Through the silent mediumship of Lamara, however, he was able to read the thoughts that were passing through Miriam’s mind as easily as he could discern her figure. He realized the potency of the machine, and followed the successive movements of her brain until her sudden resolve to reverse the magnet and precipitate the catastrophe. Her appeal to him at the supreme moment seemed to ring in his ears. He forgot everything except the overpowering impulse to arrest her hand, and he leaped to his feet with a passionate cry:
“No, no, beloved! Not that! Oh, God, protect her!”
The water mirror quivered, and was dissolved into broken strands of glittering spray. He staggered as he stood, staring wildly about him.