By Charles W. Diffin
[Illustration: "_That'll be all from you," he told the black one._]
[Sidenote: It is magic against magic as Garry Connell bluffs for his
life with a prehistoric savage in the heart of Sentinel Mountain.]
The first tremor that set the timbers of the house to creaking brought
Garry Connell out of his bunk and into the middle of the floor. Then
the floor heaved and 'dobe walls swayed while the man fought to keep
his footing and pull himself through the doorway to the safety of the
dark night. The earthquake that came with the spring of 1932 was on.
He was nauseated with that deathly sickness that only an earthquake
gives, and he dropped breathlessly in the shelter of a date palm while
the earth beneath him rolled and groaned in agony. A deeper roar was
rising above all other sounds, and Connell looked up at the nearby top
of Sentinel Mountain.
The stars of the desert land showed clear; the grim blackness of
Sentinel's lone peak rose abruptly from the sand of the desert floor
in darker silhouette against the velvet of a midnight sky. And the
mountain was roaring.
Softened by the distance, the deep, grumbling bass sang thunderingly
through and above the other noises of the night, as if old Sentinel
itself were voicing its remonstrance against this disturbance of its
age-long rest.
The grumbling died to a clatter of falling boulders a hundred yards
away at the mountain's base, and Connell's eyes discerned a puff of
vaporous gray, a cloud of wind-blown dust, high up on the mountain's
flank.
"Holy cats!" said Garry explosively, "what a slide! That must have
ripped the old boy wide open."
His eyes followed the white scar far up on the mountainside, followed
it down to the last loosened stones that had crashed among the date
palms of Miramar ranch. "I don't just like the idea of the whole
mountain moving in on me," he told himself; "I'll have to go up and
look at that to-morrow."
* * * * *
It was afternoon of the following day when Garry rolled blankets and
food into a snug pack and prepared for the ascent. "Guess likely I'll
sleep out to-night," he mused and looked at the pistol he held in his
hand.
"I don't want that thing slapping against me," he argued; "too darned
hot! And there's nothing to use a gun on up on Sentinel.... Oh, well!"
He threw the holster upon his bunk and dropped the automatic into the
pack he was rolling. "I'll take it along. Might meet up with a
rattler."
He brushed the sandy hair from his wet forehead and straightened to
his full six feet of slender height before he slipped the straps of
his pack about his shoulders. And a broad grin made pleasant lines
about his gray eyes as he realized the boyish curiosity that was
driving him to a stiff climb in the heat of the day.
There was no real trail up the thousand-foot slope of Sentinel
Mountain. Prospectors had been over it, doubtless, in earlier days,
but in all of Garry's twenty-one years no one besides himself had ever
made the ascent.
There was nothing in all that solitary, desolate peak to call them;
nothing, for that matter, to beckon Garry, except the hot desert days,
the cool breath of evening and the glory of nights when the stars hung
low over all the miles of sand and sagebrush that reached far out to
the rippling sand-dunes shimmering in the distance. Nothing, that is,
but the "feel" of the desert--and young Garry Connell was desert-born
and bred.
He stopped once and dropped his pack while he mopped his wet face.
From this point he could see his own ranch spread below him. Miramar,
he had named it--"Beautiful Sea." The name was half an affectionate
mockery of this land where the nearest water was fifty miles away, and
half because of the sea of blue that he looked at now. Garry had never
ceased to wonder at the mirage.
It was always the same in the summer heat--a phantom ocean of water.
Garry's eyes loved to follow the quivering blue expanse that seemed so
cool and deep. It rippled softly away to end in a line of white, like
distant breakers on the horizon's rolling dunes.
This had been the bed of an ocean in some distant past, and that
ancient ocean could never have seemed more real than this; yet Garry
knew that this sea would vanish with the setting sun. He had watched
it often.
* * * * *
A hundred yards farther and he stopped again. It was no well-trodden
path that Garry followed, but he knew his landmarks. There was the big
split rock a half mile ahead, and the three-branched cactus beside it.
But between these and the place where Garry stood was a fan-shaped
sweep of boulders--and this where smooth going had been before.
He forgot for the moment all discomfort. He stood staring under the
hot sun that cast purple shadows beside the weathered rocks, and his
eyes followed up the scarred mountainside.
"That whole ledge that stood out up there--that's gone!" he told
himself. "The whole side of the mountain just shook itself loose...."
Far above, his eyes found another towering mass that reared itself
menacingly. "That will come down next time," he said with conviction,
"and I don't want to be under it when it breaks loose." Then his
searching eyes found the lower ledge and its shattered remains.
It had held a welter of rocks above it as a dam holds the pressure of
water--and the dam had burst. The torrent of stone from above had
swept into motion and carried with it the accumulation of loose rubble
below. Where the ledge had been was now a cliff--a sheer wall of rock.
It had been covered before by the talus that was swept away.
Garry's eyes narrowed to see more plainly under the sun's glare. He
was staring not alone at the cliff but at a shadow within it--a black
shadow in the white face of the cliff itself.
"That was all covered up before," Garry stated; "buried for thousands
of years, I suppose. But it can't be a cave; not a natural one, at
least. There are no caves in this rock."
He stopped at times for breath, and his wonder grew as he climbed and
the black mark took clearer form. At last he stood panting before it,
to stare deep into the utter blackness of a passageway beyond an
entrance of carved stone.
It was carved; there was no mistaking it! Here was a passage that
nature had never formed. He took a quick stride forward to see the
tool marks that showed on hard walls where symbols and figures of
strange design were carved. An intrusion of harder rock had formed a
roof, and they had cut in below--
"They!" He spoke the word aloud. Who were "they?"
* * * * *
He remembered the scientist who had stopped at the ranch some time
before, and he recalled enough of the talk of Aztec and Toltec and
Mayas to know that none of these old civilizations could explain the
things he saw.
"This goes way back beyond them--it must," he reasoned. And there were
pictures, long forgotten, that came to his mind to show him a vision
from the past--figures whose coppery faces shone dark above their
brilliant, colored robes--slaves, toiling and sweating to drive this
tunnel into solid rock. He was suddenly a-quiver with a feeling of the
presence of living things. His breath seemed stifled within him as he
stepped into the dark where a pencil of light from his pocket-flash
made the blackness more intense.
He tried to shake off the feeling, but an indefinable oppression was
heavy upon him; the weight of the uncounted centuries these walls had
seen filled him with strange forebodings.
His feet stumbled and scuffed over chips of stone; he steadied himself
against the wall at times as he followed the corridor that went down
and still down before him. It turned and twisted, then leveled off at
last, and Garry Connell drew himself up sharply with a quick-drawn
breath.
His flash was making a circle of light a dozen steps ahead, and showed
a litter of sharp stone fragments. And, scattered over them, a tangle
of bones shone white; one skull stood upright to stare mockingly from
hollow sockets. The sudden white of them was startling in the black
pit.
"Bones!" he said, and forced himself to disregard the echoes that
tried to shout him down; "just bones! And the old-timers that wore
them haven't been using them for thousands of years." He moved forward
with determined steps to the end of the passage that finished in solid
stone. He stopped abruptly. At closer range was something that froze
him to a tense, waiting crouch.
This wall of solid stone--it was not solid as it had seemed. There was
a doorway; the stone was swung inward; and at one side in a
straight-marked crack, he saw a thread of light.
He snapped off his own flash. Someone was there! Someone had beaten
him to it! He held himself crouched and rigid at the thought. But who
could it be? The utter silence and the steady, unchanging, pale-green
light showed him the folly of the thought. There was no one there;
there couldn't be anyone.
* * * * *
His hand, that trembled with excitement, reached across and over the
skeleton remains posted like a ghostly guard before the door. He threw
his weight upon the stone.
Its bearings groaned, but it moved at his touch. The stone swung
slowly and ponderously into a silent room, and Garry Connell stared
wide-eyed and wondering where rock walls, in carved and colored
brilliance reflected the softest of diffused light.
A great room, hewn from the solid rock!--and Garry tried to see it and
all that it held at one glance. He grasped the extent of the stone
vault, a hundred feet across; the distant walls were plain in the soft
light.
One high point of flashing color caught his eye and held it in
marveling amazement. A thing of beauty and grace. It was a shining,
silvery shape like a mushroom growth; it towered high in air, almost
to the ceiling, a slender rod that swelled and opened to a curved and
gleaming head. Graceful as a fairy parasol, huge enough to shelter a
giant, it was like nothing he had ever seen.
But there was no time now for conjectures. He made no effort to
understand; he wanted only to see what might be here; and his eyes
flashed quickly over sculptured walls and a stone floor where metal
boxes were arranged in orderly rows.
Hundreds of them, he estimated; huge cases, some eight or ten feet
long. Two nearby were raised above the floor on bases of carved stone.
Lusterless gray in color--metal, unmistakably--and in them....
"No use getting all hopped up over treasure hunting," Garry had told
himself. But under all his incredulous amazement had been flickering
thoughts of what he might find.
He stared hungrily at those two boxes near him. Each of the hundreds
was big enough to hold a fortune. He reached for a metal bar beside
the scattered bones, and, like a man in a sleep-walking dream, he
stepped across those relics of earlier men and entered the room that
they had guarded.
The light stopped him for a moment. He puzzled over it; stared
wonderingly at a circle of glowing radiance in the roof of stone. It
reminded him of something ... the watch on his wrist ... yes, that was
the answer--some radio-active substance. His eyes came back to the
nearest chest, and he jammed the point of his corroded bar beneath the
flange of a tight-fitting lid.
* * * * *
The hidden room was cool, but Garry Connell wiped the sweat from his
eyes when he ceased his frantic efforts. The metal bar clanged loudly
upon the floor beside him. He stood, breathing heavily, his eyes on
the metal cover that refused to move. And in the silence there came to
him again that strange, prickling apprehension. He caught himself
looking quickly behind him as if to find another person there.
His eyes were accustomed now to the pale light, and the sculptured
figures on the walls stood out with startling distinctness. Garry
turned to look at the nearer wall and the figure that was repeated
over and over again.
It was a man, tall and lean, his robes, undimmed by the years, blazed
in crimson and gold. But the face above! Garry shivered in spite of
himself at the devilish ugliness the artist had copied. It was dead
black in color, with slitted eyes that had been touched up artfully
to bring out their venomous stare. The head itself rose up to a
rounded point that added to the inhuman brutality of the face.
He was seated on a throne, Garry saw, and other figures, less
skilfully carved, were kneeling before him. Again, he was standing
above a prostrate enemy, a triple-pointed spear raised to deliver the
final blow.
Silently, Garry let his eyes follow around the room with its
repetition of the horrible being who was evidently a king. Then he
whistled softly. "Nice kind of hombre, he must have been," he said.
And, "Boy," he told the carved image familiarly, "whoever you were,
you've been dead a long time, and I don't mind telling you I'm glad of
it."
He was slowly circling the first casket. Beyond it was the slender rod
with its mushroom head that seemed more like a bell as he looked from
below. The head's inner surface was emblazoned, like the figures on
the wall, with crimson and gold in strange designs. He saw now that
the base of it was connected with a smaller box, placed like the two
beside it on a stone pedestal.
He came slowly beside it to study the box with narrowed eyes. He
expected the metal cover would be as immovable as the others, and he
started back and caught his breath sharply as the metal raised at his
touch and the green radiance from above flashed back from within the
box in a thousand scintillant lights. Then he stooped to see the
brilliant, silvery sheen of metal wheels that moved on jeweled
bearings.
* * * * *
A mechanism of some sort--but what? he wondered. He had some knowledge
of the stream of electrons that discharged continuously from the light
above, and he knew how they could charge an electroscope that would
automatically discharge to produce motion. He nodded in
half-understanding as the fluttering gold-leaf fell and allowed a
tiny wheel to move one notch in its escapement.
"Clockworks!" he told himself--it was as near as he could come to a
name for the machine--"and it's been running here all this time....
What for, I wonder? What was it supposed to do?"
He stared again at the bell-shape towering above him, but its purpose
was beyond guessing: it was a part of the machine. His eyes came back
to the mechanism itself. There was a splinter of stone.... Garry
reached for it unthinkingly, but his hand was checked in mid-air.
The fragment was wedged beneath a tiny lever, holding it erect.
"That's the answer," Garry whispered. "The machine was left open,"--he
felt of the cover that had been dented by some heavy blow, and saw
sharp splinters of rock beneath his feet--"a rock fell from the roof,
flaked off and dropped onto the machine, and a splinter jammed this
little lever. But the machine has been ticking along...."
His fingers reached for the stone.
"Let's go!" he said, and grinned broadly at the thoughts that were in
his mind. "Let's see what the machine would have done!"
The fragment came away within his hand, and he saw the lever fall
slowly. There was motion within the case--wheels and shining spheres
that touched one upon another were spinning in gleaming circles of
silvery green--and from above he heard the first faint whisper of a
sound.
It came from the bell, and Garry drew back to stare upward. The first
soft humming of the clear bell-note was incredibly sweet. It rose in
pitch while the volume increased, till the musical note was lost in
the rising roar that resounded from walls and roof. Higher it rose; it
was a scream that was human in its agony, prodigious in its volume!
* * * * *
Garry Connell stood trembling with unnamed fear. This sound was
unbearable; it beat upon his ears; it battered his whole body; it
searched out every quivering nerve and tore at it with fingers of
fire. Still higher!--and the scream was piercing and torturing his
brain. He felt the jerk of uncontrollable muscles.
The whirling machine was a blur of light, and he longed with every
fibre of his tortured mind to throw himself upon it--into
it!--anything to end the unbearable impact from on high. His body,
assailed by a clamor that was physical torment, could not move; the
vibrations beat him down with crushing force, while the shrieking
voice rose higher, then grew faint, and, with a final whisper, died to
nothingness.
And still Garry felt himself sinking; the room was blurred; the
excruciating agony of tortured nerves melted into a lethargy that
swept through him. Dimly he sensed that the monstrous, quivering,
bell-topped thing was still launching its devastating rain of
vibrations; they were above the range of hearing; but he felt his body
quivering in response to the unheard note. Then even these vague
fragments of understanding left him. The towering, soundless thing was
indistinct ... it vanished in the darkness that closed about....
He was upon the floor in a crouching heap when the tremors that shook
him ceased. His mind, in the same instant, was cleared, and he knew
that the soundless vibrations from the bell had ended. A wave of
thankfulness flooded through him, and he luxuriated in the utter
silence of the room--until that silence was broken by another sound.
It was hard and metallic, like the click of a withdrawn bolt, and came
first from the case at his side. A second sharp rap replied from the
other raised casket, then an echoing tattoo of metallic impacts
rattled and clattered in the resounding room. Each of the hundreds of
caskets was adding its voice to the clacking chorus.
* * * * *
The paralysis that had held Garry's muscles was gone, and he came
slowly to his feet to see the edge of the cover he had tried vainly
to move, rising smoothly in the air. His eyes darted about; the second
casket was opening; beyond were countless others; the room was alive
with silent motion where metal lids lifted like petals of flowers
unfolding to the sun.
The machine had done it! The conviction came to him abruptly. Those
vibrations that had beaten him down had done this: some unlocking
mechanism within each case had been actuated when the vibrations
reached the proper pitch. Then the thoughts were driven from his mind
by a more thrilling conviction: The caskets were open! The treasure!
Who could know what some of them might contain? He took one quick step
toward the nearer of the two.
One step!--and his reaching hands stopped motionless above the open
case. The contents of the box were plain before him--and he stared in
horror at the black, half-naked figure of a man as silent and unmoving
as its counterpart upon the wall.
Black as a carving in ebony, it was the face that held Garry's eyes.
He saw the pointed head, the thin lips half-drawn from snarling teeth,
the expression of brutal savagery that even this frozen stillness
could not conceal.
The eyes were closed; Garry saw their slitted lids. He was looking at
them when they quivered and twitched. The lids opened slowly, drew
back from staring eyes that were cold and dead--eyes that came
suddenly to life, that turned and stared unwinkingly, horribly, into
his.
* * * * *
Garry's lips were moving as he drew back in slow retreat, but he heard
no sound of his own voice, only a husky whisper that said over and
over again: "Mummies! Caskets of mummies! And they're coming back to
life!"
Suspended animation. He had heard of such things. Dim, fleeting
remembrance of what he had read came flashingly to him--toads that had
lived a thousand years sealed up in rock--but this, a human thing, a
man!--no, no!--it couldn't come to life; not after all this time!
The pointed head, the ugly, menacing face and the body of dead black
that rose slowly within the casket gave his argument the lie. In
dreadful, living reality he saw the thing before him as it stretched
its corded neck, extended and flexed its long, black arms and breathed
deeply through lips drawn thin. Then, with a bound of returning
energy, it leaped out and down to stand half-naked and black, towering
threateningly above his head.
And Garry, too stunned to feel a sense of fear, looked first at the
living face before him and then at the carvings done in stone. There
was too much here for instant comprehension; his reason could not
follow fast enough where facts were leading, and his mind seemed
groping for some certain, proven thing.
"It's the same one that's on the wall," he explained painstakingly to
himself. "It's the king, the old boy himself! I said he would be a bad
hombre; I said he was a bad one--"
He saw the other raise his hands threateningly, and he crouched to
meet the attack. But the black hands dropped, and the scowling face
turned, while Garry's eyes followed toward a sound of movement in the
second casket.
The green light flooded down, and Garry Connell glanced quickly at the
doorway. Too many of these blacks and this would be no safe place for
him. He was expecting another apparition like the first; he would have
thought himself prepared against any further surprise, but his gray
eyes opened wide at what the light disclosed.
* * * * *
There was the casket, gray and lusterless on its low, stone base. Its
cover, like the others, stood erect, and above the nearer edge an arm
was raising. But it was a white arm, and it ended in a slim, white
hand!--its rounded softness held in clear outline against the back
ground of gray, until the arm fell that the hand might grip the metal
edge.
Garry's eyes held in wondering fascination upon those slender white
fingers. The hand of a woman--a girl!--what marvel of miracles was
this? He held his silent pose while he stared at the face that
appeared before him.
It was milk-white against the dull gray metal beyond, the white of
death itself, until returning circulation brought a flush of pink that
crept slowly to the rounded cheeks. Dark hair cascaded about the
shoulders to mingle with a lacy veil of golden threads. A film of
golden lace wrapped about her--her robes had gone to dust, vanished
with the vanished years--and only the threads of gold with which the
robe was shot remained, a futile concealment for the slim white of her
shoulders, the soft curves of rounded breasts. But Garry's eyes were
held by the eyes that looked and locked with his.
Dark eyes, deep and steady, yet glowing softly with the wonder of this
awakening. Windows, crystal clear, through which shone softly a light
that filled him through and through!
Alluring as was the rounded whiteness of the form so thinly veiled, it
was not this nor the childlike beauty of the face that held him
spellbound. Garry Connell's only love had been the desert, and now he
was filled and shaken by the glamour from within these thrilling eyes.
A rasping word made echoes in the silence, and Garry saw the girl's
eyes widen as she turned them upon the black one, who had spoken. He
saw her face lose its color and go dead white, and plainly her wide
eyes showed the fears that swept in upon her with returning
remembrance.
* * * * *
Garry followed her gaze to the wild figure whose slitted eyes
glittered in savage triumph and possessiveness at the white beauty of
the trembling girl. The lean figure spoke again in that rasping,
unintelligible voice--he addressed the girl now--and the tone sent a
strange prickling of animosity through every fibre of the watching
man.
The black one took one stride forward; the girl, in a flash of white
and gold, sprang from her resting place to take shelter behind the
high casket. Her eyes came back to Garry's, and the call for help
though voiceless was none the less real.
Then her pale lips moved, and she called to him with a clear voice
that uttered unknown words.
Garry came from the spell that bound him, and with a quick rush made
between her and the advancing man. He landed tense and crouching, and
his voice was hoarse with excitement when he spoke.
"That'll be all from you," he told the black one.
His words could mean nothing to this savage, but the tone that rang
through them, and his crouching, ready pose, must have been plain. The
inky face beneath the high-pointed dome of head was twisted with rage;
the eyes glared at this being who dared to oppose him. But the black
one paused, then stepped backward to the casket where he had been.
Garry retreated a few slow steps to the end of the metal box that
sheltered the girl. "Can't you understand me?" he asked. "Am I
dreaming? What has happened? Who are you, and who is this black beast?
What does it all mean?"
Again he was sure that mere speech useless, but he felt that he had to
speak, to say something, anything, to prove the reality of his own
waking self and of the wild, nightmare experience.
He saw the crouching girl rise to her full height; he saw the movement
of her hand as she swept the dark hair away from her face, and the
film of gold lace clung closely about her as she came to his side.
One hand was outstretched to rest, light and cool, upon his forehead.
* * * * *
He heard her voice, so soft and liquid yet so charged with terror. She
spoke meaningless words and phrases, but at the touch of her hand upon
his face he started abruptly.
Did the words themselves take on meaning and coherence, or was it
something within himself?--Garry could not have told. But, with the
startling clarity of a radio switched full on, he got the impress of
her thoughts, and his own brain took them and put them into words that
he knew.
"You will help me, you will save me," the words were saying. "You are
one of us, I know. You are a stranger, but your skin is white; you are
not of the tribe of Horab."
Garry was motionless and listening. He knew he was sensing her
thoughts--she was communicating with him by some telepathic magic--and
he knew, as he caught the words, that Horab was the black one there
before him, reaching and feeling within the casket where he had slept.
Horab--a savage king of a savage land--
"He captured me," the words continued in breathless haste. "I am from
Zahn: do you know the good land of Zahn? I am Luhra. Horab captured
me; carried me here to this island; it was yesterday he brought me
here. He put me to sleep, and he put his men to sleep, hundreds of his
chosen warriors. He worked his magic, and he said we would sleep for
one hundred summers. But it was yesterday. And now you will save me;
my father is a great man; he will reward you--"
The sentences flashed almost incoherently into his mind, but ceased at
a sound and stirring from the room at their backs.
Garry needed a moment for the substance of the message to register. He
had heard it as truly as if she had spoken: Horab had captured
her--yesterday!... And his own lips that had been loose with
astonishment closed to a grim smile.
"Yesterday!" She thought it was yesterday that her long night had
begun. Did Horab know the truth? Garry was suddenly certain that he
did. Horab's plans had miscarried; he could not know how far in a
distant past was that day when he had placed himself and this girl in
their caskets, safe in their mountain tomb.
* * * * *
Only an instant for these thoughts to form--then his eyes were steady
upon the tall savage who had found what he sought in the big metal
case. Horab, king of a vanished race, turned now with a heavy scepter
in his hand; and its jeweled head flashed brilliantly as he raised it
high in air and shouted an echoing command into the room. A white hand
was tugging at Garry's shoulder, a soft body clinging close, to turn
him where new danger threatened.
The other caskets! He had forgotten them, and he saw the nearer ones
alive with struggling forms. A black man-shape, with sullen, animal
face and pointed head, came slowly erect and staggered upon the floor.
Another--and another! There were scores of the black, naked men who
scrambled from the nearer caskets and swayed drunkenly upon their
feet.
Garry stood tense, his mind a chaos of half-formed plans. This one
brute he might handle, but the whole tribe--that was too large an
order. Yet he knew with an unshakable conviction that he would carry
this girl from their evil clutches or die in the trying.
Feminine charms had failed to interest Garry in that world outside,
but now the message of these soft eyes, the appealing beauty of this
lovely face, proud and unafraid despite her fears, the hand so soft
and trusting upon his face!--there had something entered into Garry
Connell's lonely life that struck deep within him and found a ready
response.
He swept one arm about the soft, yielding body beneath its wisp of
garment, and he swung her behind him as he set himself to meet the
attack. And he flashed her a look that must have carried a message,
for the trembling lips were framing a ghost of a smile as her eyes met
his.
Garry's thoughts darted to the gun, but his tightly-wrapped pack was
in the passage outside. He prayed for a moment's time that he might
meet this mob pistol in hand, and he half turned; but no time was
given. The leader was shouting orders, his harsh voice resounded in
shattering echoes throughout the stone vault, and the horde of blacks
surged forward at his command.
* * * * *
A mass of lean bodies, with faces ugly and brutal where sleep-filled
eyes opened wide and glaring! They crowded upon him, and Garry met the
rush with a rain of straight rights and lefts into the nearest faces.
He was carried backward to the wall by the weight of their numbers,
but he saw some go down for the count.
The room seemed filled with leaping, shouting men. Their shrill cries
echoed in a tumult of discord, and above all Garry heard the hoarse
screams of their leader.
There were fists and arms clubbing at his head. He warded them off,
then sprang from the wall, leaping outward and sideways, where there
was room for free swings of his pounding fists. Another black face
went blank under the impact of his blow--a second--and a third!
He was giving ground slowly as the others came on. Then beyond the
crowding figures he saw one who held a trident spear high in air. The
weapon was poised; the metal points shone in the green light--points
that would tear his body to shreds at a single blow.
Garry paused but an instant, then opened his clenched fists to clutch
the lean neck of an enemy before him. He whirled the man's body and
held it as a shield while he reached vainly to grip at the thrusting
spear. Dimly he saw the flash of white and gold where the girl,
Luhra, threw her own body upon the armed figure and clung in
desperation to the shaft of the deadly weapon.
* * * * *
Garry hung fast to the struggling body, that was his shield; there
were other spears now that flashed in the air. He loosed one hand and
landed a short jab in the face of a savage whose hands were at his
throat. The blow was light, and he was amazed to see the man stagger
and fall. There were others who swayed helplessly and stumbled to
their knees. Spears rang sharply, clattering upon the stone.... They
were falling. The body he held went suddenly limp within his arms and
sagged heavily to the floor....
Garry saw the one who had threatened him drop; he took the girl with
him as he fell, and his spear flew wildly from his open hand. Garry
was alone!--and the enemy was only a tangle of sprawling bodies where
the twitching of an outflung arm marked the last sign of life.
He was breathing hard, for some of the enemies' blows had landed, and
he staggered as he wiped a trickle of blood from his eyes. No time to
figure what this meant, but the blacks were certainly out of it.
Beyond the huddled bodies the tall figure of Horab leaped wildly in
air as he sprang forward, and in the same instant Garry threw himself
between the black menace and the prostrate girl.
He staggered again as he landed from his wild leap, and he called for
his last reserve of strength to put power behind the blow that he
launched for the snarling face above.
The heavy scepter swung high, and was falling as Garry struck. He saw
the blow start; saw the fiery arc the jeweled head made in descending
like a mace above his head. Then the face of Horab vanished, and the
room was a whirling place of flashing red and yellow before blackness
blotted it out....
* * * * *
Garry awoke to blink stupidly at a green light above him. His head was
a blinding, throbbing pain that blurred his thoughts.
It cleared slowly. The gleaming figure of a girl was rising from the
floor. His aching eyes saw the white of her young body through the
dull glow of golden lace. Her eyes came to his, and sharply he
realized that this was no dream--this cave whose walls seemed swaying,
the face that was staring pitifully at him, and, beyond, in a ghastly
green light, the dark silhouette of a lean man who bent his pointed
head above a chest.
Connell's mind was a whirl of snarled thoughts and emotions, of
puzzled wonder and fighting rage; yet strangely through and above them
all was a feeling of pure joy in the message of the eyes in a face
that was utterly lovely.
The black figure had opened the chest. Garry saw the luminous green
about it shot through with the reflected radiance of many gems. Jewels
cascaded brilliantly from the lean black hands as they withdrew a
golden cord. Part of some gem-incrusted fabric, it was, that he tore
roughly from its rotted fastenings before coming swiftly to the still
helpless body of Connell.
Garry's struggles were futile; his hands were tied before him. The
shooting pain of a prodding spear brought him from the paralyzing
numbness that held him, and he came dizzily to his feet. Again the
walls whirled, and he would have fallen headlong but for a lithe, soft
body that sprang close to throw white arms about him.
Through blood-shot eyes he saw Luhra, of the land of Zahn, with head
held high and flashing eyes as she turned squarely to face the savage
black. And he heard the stream of strange sentences that she poured
protestingly upon him.
* * * * *
Her message broke off abruptly. Garry's eyes followed hers to watch a
savage king, naked but for the tattered remnants of robes that time
had eaten. He was reaching, into a casket that had once held kingly
raiment--reaching with a lean black hand that brought forth only
fragments of purple and crimson cloth that went quickly to dust within
his hands.
Garry saw the slitted eyes stare in puzzled wonder at the rotted
cloth, then glance sharply and inquiringly about. He saw the black one
place a jeweled head-dress of barbaric splendor upon his ugly, pointed
head, then rise and cross slowly to the heap of bodies. Spear in hand,
he passed on to the serried rows of caskets.
Those nearest were empty, as Garry knew; he had seen the eruption of
life from within them. Horab, with a growled word, moved on to the
other caskets that stretched out across the room. The ugly head
stooped; again the hands reached down, to come back this time with an
empty, gleaming skull.
Garry thought once of his pistol, but knew in the same thought that he
could never reach it; the spear of Horab would crash through him at
the first movement. He dismissed the thought--forgot it--and forgot
all else in the fascination of beholding the sagging lips and the
scowling stupefaction on the black face of Horab. And slowly there
came to his throbbing brain an explanation.
One hundred summers, Luhra had said--Horab had meant to sleep for a
hundred years--and the machine that was to waken him had failed to
function. Ages beyond computing had passed, and these two only, the
black king and the girl, had survived. They had been directly beneath
the light; its flooding energy had brought them safely through the
dreamless years. But, for the others, it had been different.
Those nearest the light had responded to the vibrating call, but their
vitality was gone; their moment of life was short. As for the hundreds
who had felt the light but faintly--the skull told the story. They
had died as they slept, died thousands of years ago, and their
skeletons were all that remained to mock at their king and the
frustration of his plans.
* * * * *
But what was the purpose of the long sleep? Luhra's touch and her
soundless words supplied the answer.
"Why did he wish this?" her mind said, repeating his question.
"Horab's own country was lost; the yellow-ones from across the great
water had conquered and overrun it. But Horab had planted the seeds of
disease, and the yellow ones must all die in time. Horab is a king and
a worker of magic; he is in league with a devil; he learns his magic
of him. We of Zahn, all feared the magic of Horab--" She stopped at
the quiver of rock beneath their feet.
Garry's mind had cleared, but it was an instant before he knew that
the movement was not in his own throbbing head. Then the earth tremor
came unmistakably, and his thoughts flashed back to the mass of rock
above the mouth of the cave. If more quakes were coming they must get
out, and do it at once--
The black hand of King Horab cast the skull vindictively against the
wall, and the clatter of its falling fragments mingled with strange
oaths from the savage lips. Then he came toward the two and Garry
searched his mind desperately for some means of escape.
The trident spear was aimed, and Garry waited for the throw. He felt,
more than saw, the flash of light that was Luhra as she sprang for a
spear beside the fallen men. An instant and she was before him, tense
and poised, a golden Amazon, whose upraised arm and steady eyes
checked even Horab in his advance.
She spoke to the savage in sharp, staccato phrases, but Garry got no
meaning from the words. There was a quick interchange between them;
vehement protest and shaking of his poised spear on the part of
Horab. Luhra added a word or two, and she lowered her weapon as Horab
did the same.
Her head was bowed as she reached to touch Garry's forehead. He sensed
a hopeless sorrow that was so plainly hers, but with it he felt a
mingling of another emotion that stirred him to the depths of his
being. The slim, white figure straightened, and the dark eyes squarely
upon his when she spoke.
"Listen carefully," she said; "it is the last time--"
* * * * *
Garry found himself trembling; he was suddenly breathless with
emotion. The racking pain in his head had settled to a dull ache, but
his brain was clear, and through it were flashing strange thoughts.
The threat, the wild adventure itself!--they were nothing before the
truth that was so plain to him now. He loved this girl! he loved
her!--and his whole self responded with an inflow of fresh energy at
the thought. A stranger from a strange, lost world!--but what of
it?--he loved her!... The message from the lips and fingers of the
girl broke in upon the thoughts that were crying for expression.
"You think of me." She smiled with her lips and eyes. "I am glad that
you do, my dear one, but it is hopeless.
"Listen: I have promised; Luhra has spoken: I will go with Horab to do
as he wills. I will go freely, and he will leave you here unharmed. He
promises me this.
"I will go with Horab far across the blue water that surrounds us
here. It is an island, as you know, for have you not come here from
afar?" Garry broke in with a startled exclamation. An island! Water!
He closed his lips upon the denial of her words.
"And you," Luhra continued unheeding, "when we have gone, will return
to your own land.
"But, oh, my dear one, remember always I love you. I have read your
thoughts, oh bravest and tenderest of men; I loved you from the
moment when my eyes opened and found you waiting there. I am telling
you now, for I will never see you again." She broke in upon the wild
urge of protest that filled his mind.
With an imperious gesture she motioned Horab to discard his spear, and
she placed hers beside it on the rocky floor. But she flinched and
retreated from the outstretched arms and grasping hands, while Garry
Connell struggled in insane frenzy at the cords that bound his wrists.
He felt the lean hands of Horab upon him, and the long arms held him
in a crushing grip. And he saw the black face laugh evilly at the
watching girl as Horab kicked the spears over beside the casket where
she had been.
Garry felt himself raised in air, and he was as helpless as a child in
that grasp. An instant later he was thrown heavily, to lie bruised and
breathless in the metal box where first he had seen Luhra's face in
wide-eyed awakening.
* * * * *
The rasping voice of Horab rose high and shrill. He was shouting
triumphantly at the girl, while his hands worked to bind Garry's feet.
Luhra's head and shoulders showed above the casket edge as she circled
swiftly to approach from the opposite side and reach a trembling hand
that would make the contact necessary for thought transference. Her
cool touch was upon him; Garry ceased his futile struggle while her
words came, brokenly to his mind.
"Horab has tricked us," she cried; "he is leaving you here. He will
paralyze you with the devil song of the bell, but not to sleep as I
did: it will stop on another note. He says you will be always awake,
but helpless--thinking--thinking--always!"
She buried her face in her hands to hide from his gaze the horror that
was in her eyes. Garry Connell's straining hands went limp. The terror
in the girl's voice struck through his own wild medley of thoughts to
make him shudder with realization of the truth.
The threat was real! If Horab left the cave and took Luhra with him,
the two would die in the desert. The black savage would never dare to
face the strange, new world. And he, Garry, would be here in this
cave, in this very coffin, held in a waking death. No one knew he was
here; only by chance would the cave be investigated. And when someone
finally came!
Garry stared in fascination at the green light. He knew with terrible
certainty that whatever help might come would come too late. To lie
there hour after hour, for days and then for years--waiting!--always
waiting!... And he could never still his thoughts.... He had a
sickening realization of the thing they would find. A body!--his
body!--and the mind within it utterly insane....
The sound of the shrieking bell was in his ears, and his nerves were
trembling in response. He saw long arms above the casket, tearing away
the figure of a struggling girl.... And then he knew he was alone....
* * * * *
The sound of the bell rose to the piercing, nerve-shredding scream he had
heard before. He must think fast--and act!--but the numbness of brain and
muscle was creeping upon him. He tried to call out, but his throat was
tight, and would not respond. The echoes died into silence; the
vibrations, as before, passed beyond audible range. He was sinking ...
sinking....
Dimly he felt the casket shaking beneath him. In some distant corner
of his mind he knew that the earthquake shocks had turned. Then he
heard with ear-splitting plainness the shrieking discord as the tremor
shook the vibrating machine to silence.
The room was quiet; the paralysis left him; and in the instant of his
release the clear brain of Garry Connell flashed from chaos to lay
before him a full-formed plan.
"Luhra!" he called in the silent room. "Luhra!" But it seemed an age
before he heard Horab and his captive returning from the passage. Then
the touch of her hand gave him courage to continue.
"Yes?" she whispered; "yes, my dear one?"
He saw the shoulders of the black as he half-raised a spear
threateningly toward the girl, then turned to adjust the whirring
machine.
"Tell him," shouted Garry, "--tell Horab to shut off that damnable
machine!" The shriek of it was rising again to drown his voice. "Tell
him his life depends upon it. Tell him to listen to what I say or he
will die."
He heard the girl's voice raised in a high-pitched call, and he heard
the rasping snarl of Horab in reply. The girl repeated her cry above
the echoing clamor of the bell--and the intolerable, rising scream,
after a time, was stilled.
Garry experienced one raging moment when he would have given his hope
of life for the ability to talk to Horab face to face and in words
that could penetrate the black one's brain. But he could not. He must
use this girl as an interpreter, and he must give her words to say
that would make this ugly beast pause. He must speak as she would
speak; put words and sentences into her mouth that would reach the
savage superstitions of the other.
He spoke slowly, and stared impressively into the dark, fear-filled
eyes in the white face that bent above him. He must make the girl
believe.
"Horab works magic," he told her. "Tell Horab that I, too, am a
magician--a great magician--a greater one than Horab."
* * * * *
He waited an instant to hear the girl's words and the disdainful
laughter from lips in a savage face thrust close to where he lay.
"Horab is truly a magician," said Luhra doubtfully; "he laughs at your
magic. Horab's _Tao_ is a strong _Tao_, wicked and powerful."
"His _Tao_?" said Garry, and looked at the girl questioningly. He got
the thought in her mind. "Oh, yes--his god, or devil."
He turned his head to sure straight into the grinning face whose wide,
thin lips were twisted into a leering snarl. Garry had to summon all
his power of will to hold the look that he gave his enemy and to
laugh, in his turn, long and contemptuously. Another tremor shook the
casket where he lay.
"Tell Horab," he ordered, while his eyes stared steadily into those of
the savage king, "--tell Horab my _Tao_ is stronger than his. My _Tao_
is angry because I have been harmed; he is shaking the mountain. He
will shake it down on Horab and crush out his life."
He continued to stare while he heard Luhra's voice, high with hope,
and he saw a change of expression flicker across the black face,
though Horab shouted a vehement reply.
Luhra was speaking to him. "Horab says the earth has shaken before;
that it is not your _Tao_ who shakes it. He asks for another sign."
Garry was not surprised. He had fired this shot at random; the tremor
itself had suggested it. And now--
"Another sign!" Garry had to fight hard for self-control to keep from
shouting the truth to this evil thing--to keep from telling him of the
time that had passed, and of the world that was waiting for him. But
that would never do: he must play upon this black one's superstitions.
Let Horab once leave this cave with that devilish, soundless scream
ringing in his ears and he, Garry Connell, was lost. And Luhra!--what
hope for her out there?... The black hands were moving impatiently
toward the machine....
Garry found himself speaking slowly--short sentences that Luhra
quickly repeated. And something within him rose to frame words such as
Garry Connell, man of the desert, would never have thought to
speak--phrases that best might reach a savage, vicious mind.
* * * * *
He glanced once at the watch on his wrist. He did not feel the torture
of the tight gold cord. He was thinking in terms of daylight, and of
how much time had passed since he had seen the sun....
"Horab shall have a sign--a terrible sign," he said. "Death waits for
Horab in the world outside, my _Tao_ tells me. Horab shall die
horribly. I see him choking in the hot sand. His tongue fills his
mouth. The hot sun burns, and he is filled with fire. He tries to
scream--to call upon his _Tao_--but he makes no sound.... And so shall
Horab die."
The girl translated swiftly; the answer was a wild cry of rage from
the black. He sprang beside the helpless man and his spear was raised
high.
Garry felt the weight of Luhra's body thrown protectingly across him,
and looked up to see murder in the savage, slitted eyes. "Tell Horab,"
he directed sharply, "that if be harms you or me the burning death is
his! But--" He waited deliberately after Luhra had spoken, and he saw
plainly the flicker of fear in the ugly face. Now was the time.
"Unbind my feet!" he ordered, and he put into his voice all the force
and menace he could muster. "Take me to the outer world. Take your
spear. If I do not speak truth, kill me there. My _Tao_ will show you
a sign; he will fill your heart with fear as it now is filled with
evil. But, it may be I can save you. Unbind my feet! Be quick!"
Again he waited while Luhra spoke, and he cursed silently with the
agony of waiting. To be playing a part, speaking these absurdly
childish things, when what he wanted was his hand upon a gun or in a
grip of death about that black throat! Yet he lay as still as if the
vibrations of the bell were upon him, and his eyes held unwaveringly
upon the savage face, until he felt the fumbling of hands about his
feet....
* * * * *
A square-cut portal!--and beyond it a golden sun that shone through
mists of purple and rose! Was he too late? Garry pressed forward in
what would have been a clumsy run, but for the spear that had prodded
him through all the long passage, and that warned now against
attempted escape.
The brilliance and heat that struck him when he stepped, out into the
open brought Garry in a flash from the world of horror and
make-believe into the world he knew. He wanted to shout for sheer joy;
but more than all else he wanted to leap at the ugly thing who stood
blinking his eyes in the mouth of the cave.
The thought of escape was strong upon him, but the touch of a timid
hand showed the folly of that. Luhra was beside him, her filmy
lacework shining softly in the sun, to make more lovely the delicate
flush beneath. Her eyes, shielded from the sun, were upon him with a
look half hopeful, half despairing. No, he must see it through--go on
with his play-acting--meet magic with magic. Horab had come out from
the cave, and spear in hand he stood commandingly above them on a huge
boulder. Yes, the magic must go on.
The harsh voice of the savage ripped out unintelligible words. Luhra
translated. "It is changed," she said, "and Horab fears. But the water
is there, and there is no burning death.... He says your _Tao_ is
weak."
Garry stared with thankful eyes across the blue expanse where a line
of white marked ghostly breakers on a distant shore; where hills were
reflected in the shimmering blue. But the sun was still above their
tops, so he must spar for time--
"My _Tao_ is strong," he said, and went on with whatever fantastic
thoughts came into his mind. He was talking against time. He told of
the new world his _Tao_ had built, of men harnessing the lightning and
flying through the air; of cannon that roared like the thunder and
threw death and destruction upon those that the _Tao_ would
destroy.... And his eyes watched the slow descent of the dropping sun,
while the figure above stirred impatiently and raised his spear.
"A sign!" Luhra was imploring. "He does not believe!"
The golden ball was touching now on a distant, purple peak. The
amazing magic of the desert!--its moment had come! Garry indicated as
best he could the phantom sea, so real, below.
"My _Tao_ has spoken," he shouted: "watch! The waters shall be dried
up; the seas shall become a desert of hot sand; the lands and waters
that Horab knows shall be no more! There shall be no food for his
stomach nor water for his lips where Horab wanders in torment....
Unless I save him."
* * * * *
He turned to stare at the vast mirage. He knew that the eyes of the
others had followed his, and he knew that they saw the first change
that crept over the land.
The blue that was so unmistakably a sea was dissolving; it seemed
sucked into the sand. And, while yet the hot rays cast their lingering
gold over mountain and plain, the seas faded and were gone ... and
where they had been in unquestioned reality was only yellow sand that
whirled hotly and drifted in the first breath of the coming night....
The towering figure above them stood rigid. Garry had found a sharp
edge of rock, and sawed frantically upon it to cut the soft gold of
the cords at his wrists. The one above them paid no heed; his eyes
were held in horror of this silent death that swept across the world.
The hand that Garry extended was steady and cautious; his arm crept
about the body of white and gold to draw the amazed and wondering girl
silently into the open cave.
"Follow!" he ordered, and dashed headlong down the darkened way where
an automatic was waiting for his eager fingers.
The pack was there, and he tore at it with frenzied hands to grip at
the pistol within. And there was also an open chest whose contents
glittered in the green light, and whose weight was not too great for
him to carry....
He had both chest and gun when he returned. The stumbling falls in his
mad rush had not served to allay the hurts of his tortured body, nor
still his raging fury. He called to Luhra as he ran--and realized that
Luhra was gone. The chest fell forgotten at his feet as he rushed out;
he shouted her name and cursed himself for leaving her.
* * * * *
Had the fascination of the outer world drawn her back? Had she trusted
too greatly in the power of his Tao to shield her from harm? Connell
could not know. He knew only that he saw her struggling in the grip of
the long arms where the black one held her on an outthrust rock.
They were a hundred feet away, yet the black face beneath its pointed
skull showed plainly its bestial fury as Garry sprang forward. With
one motion the tall figure dashed the girl to the stone at his feet
and raised his spear. He paused to laugh harshly at the man who rushed
toward him--who could never reach him to stop the fatal thrust.
A threat, it might have been, to hold the attacker off, or a murderous
intent to end now and forever this one captive's life: Garry did not
wait to learn. And the hundred-foot distance that meant a hundred feet
of safety to the savage was spanned by a stream of lead from a gun
whose stabbing flashes cracked sharply upon the still air. The ringing
clatter of a spear that fell among granite stones came thinly to Garry
as he saw the black form of Horab, king of another day, spin dizzily
from the rock on which he stood.
He had hit him--wounded him at least--and the firing of that wild
fusillade might have emptied the magazine! Gary waited for nothing
more, but gathered the limp body of the girl within his outstretched
arms and carried her stumblingly across the welter of rocks on the
boulder-strewn slope. Nor did he stop until he had gained the safety
of open ground beyond the marks of the great slide.
* * * * *
The earth was shivering and weaving as he laid her down; a rock
crashed sharply in the distance. Garry turned to retrace his steps and
leap wildly from rock to rock toward the mouth of the cave in a
granite cliff. And the metal chest was in his arms when he returned
where Luhra waited.
The ground was alive with sickening motion, he was nauseated with
earthquake sickness, but he gave thought only to his gun and the one
cartridge that he found in the chamber. He steadied his arm upon a
rock to take aim at a figure on a distant slope.
Horab had climbed back upon the rock. A lean figure and black, he was
sharply outlined in the last rays of the setting sun; the target was
clear beyond the pistol's sights. But the fingers of the grim-faced
man refused to tighten upon the trigger.
Savage and cruel--a relic of a bygone age! He stood there, ludicrous
and unreal in his stark black nakedness, his frayed robes of crimson
whipping to tatters in the breeze. Yet he had forgotten his
wounds--Horab was standing upright--and Garry's hand that held the
pistol fell loosely at his side. The hate melted from his heart as he
watched where Horab drew himself painfully erect.
A barbarous figure was Horab, and evil beyond redemption, yet there
were not lacking the attributes of a king in the grotesque form whose
head was still held high. The sun made flashing brilliance of the
jewels on that distorted head, while he stared with hopeless, savage
eyes across the changed world where he could have no part. His _Tao_
had failed him; his enemy had struck him down; and now--
The rock that bad been a rest for Garry's arm was swaying, and to his
ears came a rumble and groan. Sentinel Mountain, that had watched the
ages pass, that had seen the oceans truly change to sand, protested
again at this disturbance of its own long sleep.
Garry heard the coming of the masses from above; the crashing din was
deadening to his ears. They were safe--and his eyes were upon a savage
figure, black and tall, that stared and stared, silently, across a sea
of yellow sand. He watched it, clear-cut, motionless--until it
vanished beneath the roaring flood of rocks.
* * * * *
And close in his arms there pressed the soft body of a trembling girl
who touched his face and whispered: "Your _Tao_, my brave one, is
strong. Hold me closely that he may count me as your friend."
His own whispered words, though differing somewhat, were a fervent
echo of hers. He saw the rocky masses piled high where the mouth of a
cave had been; and "Thank God!" Garry Connell said, "we got out of
there in time!"
The casket of jewels lay neglected among the rocks: to-morrow would be
time enough to salvage the wealth for which he had risked his life. He
swept the girl into his arms, and the sun's last rays made golden
splendor of his burden as he carried her across the broken stones.
His ranch showed far below him when he stopped, but the green of date
palms had vanished under the last great sweep of rocks. Some few that
remained made dark splotches among the shadows that were engulfing the
world.
What did it matter? Miramar--"Beautiful Sea!" He laughed grimly at
thought of how that sea had served him, but his eyes were tender in
his tanned and blood-stained face.
Miramar could be restored. And it would be less lonely now....
ROBOT CHEMIST
A robot chemist with an electric eye, radio brain and magnet hands
functioned without human supervision in an improvised laboratory
recently before members of the New York Electrical Society.
The automatic chemist performed several experiments. Its work was
explained by William C. MacTavish, professor of chemistry at New York
University, and was part of a program in which cold light was
reproduced, a sample weighing a millionth of a gram analyzed, a
photo-electric cell used to control analysis and new scientific
apparatus demonstrated.
In his talk on "The Magic of Modern Chemistry," Professor MacTavish
demonstrated the separation of para-hydrogen and ortho-hydrogen. In
the micro-analysis of a millionth of a gram, Professor MacTavish
exhibited in the micro-projector a ball of gold weighing one
thousandth of a milligram (one twenty-eight millionth of an ounce),
having a value of less than one ten-thousandth of a cent.
The robot chemist was the joint creation of Dr. H. M. Partridge and
Professor Ralph H. Muller of the department of chemistry at New York
University. In explaining what the automatic chemist can do, Professor
MacTavish said:
"The ability of the automatic chemist to control chemical operations
is due to its sensitivity to slight variations in color and light
intensity. Its working parts are very simple. They consist of a
standard light source, in this case an electric light, a
photo-electric cell which detects differences in the amount of light
impinging on it, a radio tube which amplifies the signal received from
the photo-electric cell and which operates the relays controlling the
automatic valves.
"Between the electric light and the photo-electric cell is placed a
glass vessel holding an alkali that is to be neutralized. Above is a
tube from which an acid passes, drop by drop, through an automatic
valve, into the alkali. A small amount of chemical indicator added to
the alkali maintains a red color in it until it is neutralized. When a
sufficient amount of the acid has dropped into the alkali, the red
color disappears, indicating complete neutralization.
"When the solution is colored red, an insufficient amount of lights
gets through to the photo-electric cell. As the red color gradually
diminishes, the amount of light passing through increases, and when
the solution is entirely clear the light reaches a critical value
which causes the photo-electric cell to pass a signal to the radio
tube. This tube operates the relay which closes a valve and shuts off
the supply of acid.
"Using a device of this sort to perform such operations around a
laboratory will save a great deal of a chemist's time. Its electric
eye is about 165 times as sensitive to differences in color as any
human eye."
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