It was quickly arranged that Nan-nan should go at once to the village near the lobster pool, and engage a gang of Cupian men to cut a swath through the thick woods which hem in the pool. When this was completed, he was to send a messenger to Luno Castle to summon Cabot, who, meanwhile, would be engaged in preparing certain mysterious electrical apparatus. For the present, the earth-man’s return was a secret.
The plan worked to perfection. Only one day was consumed in chopping the path through the woods. On the second day after his meeting with Nan-nan and Emsul, Myles proceeded to the lobster pool by the kerkool, with his electrical equipment and several boats.
XXIV
THE LOBSTEROID CIRCUIT
Myles could not help comparing his present ease of passage down the swath cut by the Cupians with his difficult grubbing through the shrubs a few feet an hour, or even with forcing his way behind the wedge-faced insect.
Upon his arrival at the brink of the abyss, his first act was to test the black sand with an electric coil. As he had expected, it was magnetite, the only iron ore which will respond to a magnet. It was the same ore as he had used in his crucibles while making his radio set in Vairkingi.
This preliminary disposed of, cables were quickly stretched back and forth across the pit, and from these cables large electro-magnets were hung close to the surface of the water. Wires were run from the lighting system of the near-by town to a master controller at the top of the cliff.
When all was in readiness, the earth-man threw the current into all the circuits. The result was immediate. To the surface of the water there floated bottom side up, a score or more of lobsterlike creatures, each the size of a freight car. Poor beasts!
The pellets of sand and cement, in the cavities of their gravity-sense organs, were composed of magnetite; and this being attracted upwardly by the suspended electro-magnets, gave the poor creatures the impression that up was down, and down was up. Consequently, reversing their position and floating to the surface, they imagined—with what little imagination their primitive brains were capable of—that they were resting peacefully at the bottom of the lake.
Next there were turned on, in place of the suspended magnets, a number of magnets lying against the steep side of the pit near the surface of the water; and instantly all the lobsteroids rolled over, with their bellies toward that side of the pit. The experiment was a complete success.
Grappling hooks and blocks and tackle were then brought, and dragging was begun for the airplane, the ant-rifle, and the bandoleer of cartridges which Myles had lost on the night of his landing in Cupia.