“Which has the post of honor on your table here, has it not?” inquired Ronald, drawing his hand from his pocket and pointing to the insulated coil.
The old man glanced keenly at his hand as he did so; at which Ronald seemed confused, and pocketed it again abruptly.
“Yes, that is the life-magnet. You see this bent glass tube surrounded by the helix? That tube contains liquid carbon. I pass through the helix a current of induced electricity, generated by the action of these sixty Bunsen cups upon a succession of coils with carbon cores, and the magnet becomes charged with soulless life. I reverse the stream—what was positive now is negative, and the same magnet will absorb life from a living being to an extent only to be measured by thousands of millions.”
“Then, what effect is produced on the body you pump the life from?”
“Death.”
“And what becomes of the soul?”
“I don’t quite know. I fancy, however, that the magnet absorbs that too.”
“Can it give it back?”
“Certainly; otherwise my life-magnet would belie its name, and be simply an ingenious and expensive instrument of death. By reversing the conditions, I can restore both soul and life to the body from which I drew them, or to another body, even after the lapse of several days.”