Rising on his hands and knees he peered between two of the jars. The head was not more than a yard from Nick's eyes, but the face was turned away.
By the hair, and the general outline, it might be Deever's. At all hazards Nick must get a sight of it before it was consigned to the furnace in which a fire, supported by peculiar chemical agencies and much hotter than burning coal, raged furiously.
Suddenly, when it seemed as if the doctor was about to raise an arch of fire-brick in order to throw the head into the fire, he turned and dropped the grim object into the jar almost directly above Nick's head.
It was carefully done, though quickly. The head sank without a splash. Only a single drop of the fluid—a drop no bigger than a pin's point—fell upon the back of Nick's hand.
It burned like white, hot iron. It seemed to sink through the hand upon which it fell.
Nick sprang to his feet, not because of the pain of the burning acid, but because he knew that he must instantly obtain a sight of the head or it would be dissolved.
It lay face upward in the jar, but the acid, even in that instant, had done its work.
All semblance to humanity had vanished. As Nick gazed, the head seemed to waver in the midst of the strange fluid, and then, suddenly, Nick saw, in a direct line where it had been, the bottom of the jar.
The head had been dissolved.
Nick raised his eyes to Dr. Jarvis' face.