“So you see, darling,” said Myra, “the glasses cured me completely, and I can see just as well as ever.” And I shall not repeat what I said in reply to such glorious news.
“Tell me, dear,” I asked shortly, “what exactly happened with Dennis? I haven’t quite got that.”
“Well, he saw me on my way to Glasnabinnie,” she explained, “and was determined to follow. He couldn’t find a boat of any kind, so he swam! Angus saw him in the water and ran and told daddy. When they found there was no boat they went and fetched the one on the loch, carried it down to the sea, and called Hamish. Then they pulled across. Then, you see, when Dennis had his heart attack, I thought he was only pretending. I thought he saw that we should never be able to get away again, and that if he pretended to be dead they would leave us alone. So I followed his lead. I was terribly frightened when I couldn’t make him answer me after they had gone, but before I could do anything daddy and the men arrived. Angus stopped with me, and told me where the Fiona had gone. We took the Baltimore because she is much faster than our boat. He must have been a duffer to lose that race we had. And then daddy and Hamish took Dennis—I refuse to call him Mr. Burnham after this—and brought him here and sent for Dr. Whitehouse.”
“I’m thankful he’s out of danger,” I said fervently.
“But the doctor says he must take it very, very gently for a long time, and he won’t be able to walk much for months. Did he know he had this heart trouble?”
I had scarcely finished explaining the extent of Dennis’s heroism when Garnesk arrived.
“Hilderman’s dead!” he said. “He made a full confession. It seems he is a German, and his name’s von Hilder. He has lived most of his life in America. He is a brilliant physicist, and has done some big things with electricity and light. He was here to prepare the submarine base you found, and he also got on with a new invention—The Green Ray. Of course he didn’t give the secret of that away, but we have the searchlight, and I have already tumbled to it partly. It is practically a new form of light.
“It is formed by passing violet and orange rays through tourmaline and quartz respectively. The accident to Miss McLeod was their first intimation of its blinding properties, and to the end he knew nothing about the suffocation part of it. I find by experiment that when the two rays are switched on simultaneously the air does not become de-oxygenised, but when you put the violet ray first it does, and it remains so until the orange ray is applied. The effect that Hilderman imagined, and succeeded in producing, was a ray of light which should so alter the relative density of the air as to act as a telescope. He’s done it, and it’s one of the finest achievements of science. However, I have a piece of wonderful news for you.”