At the precise instant when Dr. Gresham seated himself at the radio of
the _Albatross_, the great Consolidated News Syndicate, which dealt with
newspapers all over the world, was broadcasting a “flash” of terrible
import:
_An hour ago New York had been wiped out by a stupendous tidal wave!_
Details of the disaster still were lacking.
And then, before the astronomer could lift a hand to send his call, some
instantaneous and terrific disturbance of the atmosphere blotted out all
wireless communication!
What this disturbance might be, or what it might portend, seemed to
arouse in my companion the gravest alarm. His face looked ashen as he sat
there at the key. Over and over he sought to get Mare Island, but without
success: the ether was as unresponsive as if his instruments were dead.
Presently he rose without a word and, motioning me to follow, sought
Ensign Hallock on the bridge. Briefly he told the young officer about the
destruction of Manhattan, adding:
“Something serious has happened somewhere in the world, since then,
completely to disorder the atmosphere. It may be the earth’s final
struggle for existence. Unless the Seuen-H’sin’s power is broken _at
once_, the end is near! It is too late to wait for reinforcements. We
must tackle the job ourselves—at any cost! The question is: how are we
going to do it?”
Hallock thought a few moments, and then replied:
“We can’t bomb the place from an airplane, because we brought no airplane
bombs. And we can’t shell it with the ship’s guns without knowing its
exact location. Our planes aren’t equipped with range finders, either—so
it would do no good to try to locate it from the air.
“That,” he added with decision, “leaves us no choice but a direct attack!”
“Well,” responded Dr. Gresham, “at any cost, we’ve got to try!”
At once we consulted the ship’s charts—and made a discovery.
Not far below our present location, a tributary fiord entered Dean
Channel from the left, and with sudden hope we saw that this waterway
twisted back among the mountains for several miles—reaching a point
in one of its windings where it was not more than six or seven miles
directly south of the region in which the power plant was hidden.
“There’s our chance!” Hallock announced. “If the sorcerers have missed
the _Albatross_, they’ll think we are on our way out of the country as
fast as we can travel. They won’t be expecting us to come back so soon—in
broad daylight. We can steam up this side channel to the proper spot and
then march across the mountains until we find the plant.”
“Good!” assented the scientist. “They are less likely to be on guard
against an attack from that side, anyway!”
Day was now beginning to break, which made further navigation easy. In
a few minutes we came to the tributary inlet, and swung the vessel in
between its high, constricted walls.
The ensign was now imbued with marvelous activity. Orders flew thick and
fast. A couple of the machine guns were made ready for land transport.
Two light mountain mortars and a quantity of ammunition were brought up
on deck. A supply of shrapnel hand grenades was distributed among the men.
Our progress through this tortuous waterway necessarily was slow;
nevertheless, at the end of an hour and a half, the destroyer was stopped
and we made ready for the final adventure.
It was decided that all fifteen of us should go, because less than that
number could not carry our equipment up and down the steep mountainsides,
and three or four men left to guard the ship would be utterly useless in
the event of an attack.
So, with every nerve alert, we struck out through the trackless
wilderness.
Three hours later we came upon six large steel conduits which we knew
must convey the water power to the plant, and in a few minutes we had
followed these to our goal.
Here we found ourselves upon the brow of a promontory directly behind and
fully 300 feet above the Seuen-H’sin’s workshop. The promontory ended in
a sheer precipice, from the outermost curve of which the conduits dropped
straight down into the powerhouse. This tremendous fall of the six
streams of water supplied the enormous energy to the turbines. The summit
of this projecting ridge was fairly level, and for a distance of perhaps
seventy-five yards at the end the timber had been entirely cleared away.
Extending out from the brow of the precipice, and resting upon the tops
of the conduits where they plunged downward, was a narrow bridge of iron
lattice-work which connected all six of the pipes and gave access to the
bolts which tightened the steel elbows. Through holes in this grating,
iron ladders fastened between the pipes and the granite cliff back of
them descended clear to the bottom of the precipice.
A slight rail only three feet high protected the outer edge of this
grid—a little hand-hold for the workmen in case of a misstep. From this
dizzy balcony it would be possible to drop a stone almost upon the roof
of the powerhouse.
After a quick look around, Ensign Hallock chose a spot a little back from
the cliff to set up the mortars that were to throw explosives upon the
building. He also prepared to place mines under the conduits. But first
the machine guns were planted to command the surrounding timber, in case
of an attack.
There still was no indication that the sorcerers suspected our presence
in their vicinity; so, inasmuch as Hallock said his preparations would
take some little time, Dr. Gresham determined to employ the interval in
getting a closer look at the power plant.
One of the ladders down the precipice, he had noticed, was in such
a position behind its water main that it could not be seen from the
building; and he decided to attempt the approach by this means. To my
delight, he made no objection to my accompanying him.
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.
Without lingering further, we crawled back to the ladder and commenced
our long climb up the cliff.
Upon reaching the top again, we found the ensign and his men still busy
with their preparations for the bombardment. Withdrawing far enough to be
out of their hearing, the astronomer turned to me and remarked:
“Well, what do you think of the scientific achievements of the sorcerers
now?”
“I don’t know what to think!” I replied. “It’s utterly beyond my
comprehension!”
The doctor chuckled at my dismay.
“Forgive me,” he said, “for having kept you so long in the dark.
Until today I could never prove my theories—certain as I was of their
correctness—and I did not wish to attempt any explanations until I
was sure of my ground. But now you have seen enough to understand the
solution of the puzzle.”
To my delight, the scientist was dropping into one of his most
communicative moods. After a moment he went on:
“To comprehend, even in a general way, what the Seuen-H’sin has done, you
must understand the principle of resonance.
“Let us start with the swinging pendulum of a clock. What keeps it in
motion? Nothing but a slight push, delivered at exactly the right time.
Any swinging object can be kept swinging, even though it weigh many
tons, if it is given a touch by the finger of a baby at _just the right
moment_. By the same principle, the amount of swing can be increased
enormously if the successive pushes are correctly timed.
“But we need not limit our illustration to swinging objects. Everything
in the word has a natural period of vibration, whether it be a violin
string, or a battleship, or a forty-story skyscraper.
“Fifty men can capsize a twenty-thousand-ton battleship merely by running
back and forth from one side of the deck to the other and carefully
timing their trips to the vessel’s rolling. A child with a tack hammer
can shake down a forty-story skyscraper if he can discover the natural
period of the building’s vibration and then tap persistently upon the
steel framework at the correct interval.
“Even the earth itself has its natural period of vibration.
“If you exploded a ton of dynamite on top of the ground it would blow
quite a hole and jar the earth for several miles around it; and that
would be all. But if you set off another ton of dynamite, and then
another and another, and kept it up continuously—always timing the
explosions to the period of the earth’s vibration—eventually the jar
would be felt clear through the globe. And if you still persisted, in
time you would wreck the world.
“Such is the accumulative power of many little blows correctly timed.
The principle of timing small impulses to produce large effects is the
principle of resonance.
“But there are other forces in nature which can produce
vibration—electricity, for instance, Nikola Tesla demonstrated a number
of years ago that the globe is resonant to electric waves.
“Now, suppose some person constructed an apparatus that could suddenly
turn a tremendous flood of electric waves into the earth. That energy
would go clear through the globe, imparting a tiny impulse to every atom
of matter of which the sphere is composed—like a push upon the pendulum
of a clock.
“And suppose that person knew the exact period of the earth’s vibration,
and sent another bolt, and another and another, into the globe—all
exactly timed to impart a fresh impulse at the correct moment—to give
the pendulum another push, so to speak. Then let him pile electric
impulse upon electric impulse, each at just the right second, until the
accumulation of them all represented millions of horsepower in electric
oscillations. In time, _the world would be shaken to pieces_!
“And—impossible as it sounds—that is the very principle the Seuen-H’sin
is using there beneath your eyes! The dynamos furnish the power, and that
great battery of induction coils magnifies it to an almost inconceivable
voltage. By those cables attached to copper plugs, the impulses are
conveyed to the earth.
“Every blow of that tremendous electric hammer is heavier than the
preceding one because it has the accumulated power of all the others
behind it. With every blow the earth grows weaker—less able to stand the
shock. Continued, the planet’s doom would be inevitable—if it is not
already so!”
I had been listening to this recital with amazement too profound to admit
of interruption. When Dr. Gresham finished I sat silent, turning it
all over in my mind, and reflecting how simple the explanation seemed.
Finally—
“Was it those electric waves being discharged into the ground,” I asked,
“that Professor Howard Whiteman in Washington mistook for wireless
signals from Mars?”
“Precisely!” was the answer.
“And how,” I inquired, “was it possible for the sorcerers to discover
the exact period of the earth’s vibration? That seems little short of
superhuman.”
“Doubtless you remember the newspaper accounts published that night
when we returned from Labrador,” replied the doctor. “They told how the
electric whispers, when first noticed, occurred exactly two minutes
apart; then the interval increased one minute each night until the
signals were separated by more than thirty minutes; afterward the lulls
altered erratically for some time, until they became fixed at eleven
minutes and six seconds.”
“Yes,” I assented.
“Well,” continued the scientist, “those variations simply denoted the
experiment of the Seuen-H’sin to ascertain the period of the globe’s
vibration. If, after continuing their discharges all one night, their
seismographs showed no response from the earth, they knew their bolts
were wrongly timed, and they experimented with another period.
“Eventually they found that their impulses penetrated the earth with a
speed of approximately 709 miles a minute—in other words, in precisely
eleven minutes and six seconds the waves passed clear through the
plant. This, then, was demonstrated to be the length of time that must
elapse before the pendulum—figuratively speaking—could be given another
electrical push. You saw just now, on the switchboard down there, the
clockwork apparatus which times those bolts.”
After a moment’s consideration I remarked:
“Your own electrical equipment on board the _Albatross_—those big
induction coils and the rest of it—what did you plan to do with that?”
“I had meant to fight the Seuen-H’sin with its own methods,” the
doctor replied. “I was going to throw a high-power electric current
into the earth at intervals between those of the sorcerers’—say five
minutes apart. That would have interfered with the acceleration of the
vibrations—like setting a second group of men to run across the ship’s
deck between the trips of the first group. One set of vibrations would
have neutralized the other.
“But,” Dr. Gresham added, “the time for such methods is past. We must end
the whole thing immediately—at one stroke!”
Receiving a signal from Ensign Hallock that he was ready, we started to
rejoin the ship’s party. But before we had gone a dozen steps we were
rooted to the spot by a new terror!
Off in the east, where the snow-covered peaks lifted into the sky,
suddenly burst forth an awful crashing sound, as of a colossal
cannonade—a ponderous and unbroken thunder-roll, terrible as the enormous
tumult of the day of doom. As our gaze followed the nightmare sounds to
the edge of the world we beheld the lofty mountains oscillate, crack,
disjoint, and crumble into seething ruin.
The noise that accompanied this destruction came roaring and booming
across the intervening miles—a stupendous and unearthly commotion,
shattering the very atmosphere to fragments.
For a minute Dr. Gresham stood petrified. But as the enormity of the
cataclysm became evident, an unconscious cry, almost a groan, escaped him:
“Too late! Too late! The beginning of the end!”
Suddenly he wheeled—almost livid with excitement—to the naval officer and
screamed at the lop of his voice:
“_Fire!_ For God’s sake destroy that power plant! _Fire! FIRE!_”
_CHAPTER XIII_