phony that I had experienced in the same room some months
previously was as nothing. These stupendous waves of sound pounded us
until it seemed as if we must disintegrate beneath them. Wails and
screams engulfed us. Mrs. Drayle dropped to her knees beside her
husband. The doctor seized my arm and I saw the knuckles of his hand
turn white with the pressure of his grip, yet I felt nothing but the
awful vibrations that drummed like riveting machines upon and through
my nerves and body. It was not an attack upon the ears alone; it
crashed upon the heart, beat upon the chest so that breathing seemed
impossible. My brain throbbed under the terrific pulsations. For a
while I imagined the human system could not endure the ordeal and that
all of us must be annihilated.

"Except for his slow turning of the dials Drayle was motionless before
the machine. Below the bandage about his forehead I could see his
features drawn with anxiety. He had wagered a human life to test his
theory and I think the enormity of it had not struck him until that
moment.

"What I knew and hoped enabled me to imagine what was taking place in
the Boston laboratory. I seemed to see man's elementary dust and
vapors whirled from great containers upward into a stratum of
shimmering air and gradually assume the outlines of a human form that
became first opaque, then solid, and then a sentient being. At the
same instant I was conscious that the appalling pandemonium had ceased
and that the voice of Drayle's Boston assistant was on the radio.

* * * * *

"'Congratulations, Chief! His reassemblage is perfect. There's not a
flaw anywhere.' "'Splendid,' Drayle answered. 'Bring him here by
plane right away; his wife is worried about him.'

"Then Drayle turned to me.

"'You see,' he said, 'Jackson Gee was right. We have resolved man into
his constituent elements, transmitted his key vibrations by radio, and
reassembled him from a supply of identical elements at the other end.
And now, if you will assure that woman that her husband is safe, I
will get some sleep. You will have the proof before you in less than
three hours.'

"I can't vouch for the doctor's feelings, but as Drayle left us I was
satisfied that everything was as it should be, and that I had just
witnessed the greatest scientific achievement of all time. I did not
foresee, nor did Drayle, the results of an error or deliberate
disobedience on the part of one of his a