As we slipped through an opening in the iron bridge and started our dizzy descent of the ladder—which seemed to sway beneath our weight—I felt a thrill of exultation, in spite of our peril, at the thought that at last we were to solve the mystery of the Seuen-H’sin’s terrible power over our planet!
The trip was slow and risky, but finally we came abreast of a window in the rear wall of the building, and by stretching around the side of the thick water main we could see into the place.
The workshop of the sorcerers was a long, low, narrow structure directly beside the river. Like the houses back in the Chinese village, it was a mere shell of corrugated iron, its steel framework so bolted together that it could sway with the earth tremors.
In a row down the centre of the structure were six huge turbines, operating electric generators.
Along one side of the room was the largest switchboard I had ever seen, while the whole of the other lengthwise wall was flanked with a series of massive induction coils, elaborately insulated from each other and from the ground. Although I knew little about electricity, I was certain that if the combined electrical output of those dynamos were directed through that maze of coils, the resulting voltage could only be measured in the millions—perhaps hundreds of millions!
From one large, enclosed object, supported on steel uprights over the row of induction coils, two electric cables, more than two inches in diameter, ran off through the north end of the building. One of these ended in a tiny structure about eighty yards from the powerhouse. The other ran on up the valley.
But, most curious of all, in the center of the switchboards was an apparatus surmounted by a large clock, before which a Chinese attendant sat constantly. Precisely every eleven minutes and six seconds a bell on this clock clanged sharply, and there was a bright flash in a long glass tube, followed by an earth shock.
For some time we clung there in the shadows, while Dr. Gresham studied every detail of the amazing workshop. Then, calling my attention to the fact that the place outside the powerhouse, where one of the cables ended, was hidden from view of the attendants inside by a thick clump of trees, the astronomer said he wanted a closer look at this place.
Creeping through the timber, we reached the tiny structure over the cable’s end. Not the slightest watch seemed to be kept anywhere about the plant. The door to the house was not fastened, so we entered and looked hurriedly about.
The room was absolutely empty except for the heavy cable, which came to the center of the floor and there connected with a copper post about four inches in diameter that ran straight down into the ground.