"Get hold of my coat," his voice came to the others. "We're going to climb."
Accordingly they climbed, in silence, up many flights of stairs, through the cloying darkness. At last Darrow halted, turned sharp to the left, fumbled for a door, and entered a room.
"Simmons?" he said.
"Here!" came a voice.
"I thought you'd be on the job," said Darrow, with satisfaction. "How's your instrument? Going, eh? We are in the wireless offices," he told the others. "Sit down, if you can find chairs. We'll wait until the sun is shining brightly, love, before we really try to get down to business. In the meantime—"
"In the meantime—" repeated both Jack and Hallowell, in a breath. "Go on, my son," conceded the latter. "I bet we have the same idea."
"Well, I was going to say that I'm not in the grammar-school physics class, and I want to know what you meant by your remark to Eldridge," said Jack.
"That's my trouble," said Hallowell.
"It's simple enough," began Darrow. "We have had, first, a failure of all electricity; second, a failure of all sound; third, a failure of all light. The logical mind would therefore examine these things to see what they have in common. The answer simply jumps at you: Vibration. Electricity and light are vibrations in ether; sound is vibration in air or some solid. Therefore, whatever could absolutely stop vibration would necessarily stop electricity, light and sound."
"But," objected Jack, "if vibration were absolutely stopped, why wouldn't they all three be blotted out at once?"