ts very worst, but that did not dampen my
hopes. The balls were gradually drawing nearer together. I wished them
to be quite close before I made the supreme trial which was to liberate
us or leave us prisoners in space for ever! Presently I loosened the
knotted sheets which held him to his bed, and lifted the feverish man,
as I might have carried a doll, and brought him in full view of the
approaching balls.

"Doctor, listen now and look," I said firmly and commandingly.

"Always stubborn and unbelieving!" he raved. "I must take it to a new
country, to America, where they invent things themselves, and are
willing to listen, and anxious to try!"

"Doctor, don't you know me? It is I, Werner, who helped you. This is a
crisis for us! Do you see those approaching balls? You know what they
mean! You must save us."

"Thou'rt too busy, like all the rest! Why, then, remember that to-morrow
will despise those who are so busy with to-day! Opportunity has knocked
and listened for thee and thou hast bade her begone!"

"Listen, Doctor. I am he who heard you and gave you the pink cheque. I
am he who refused three times to go with you and then came at last. I am
he who was afraid of the light, who dodged the Moon, and chaffed you
about the pump. Do you not remember it all? Come, you are no longer ill.
There is work to do. Have you forgotten the leaden balls? See! they are
touching each other now, and we are in the dead-line, the neutral spot,
the one danger of the trip which you acknowledged."

But it was useless. He remembered nothing, his eyes were dim and vacant,
and the great brain that had planned all this was overthrown by fever.
The experiment had failed and we were lost!

I tied him gently back on his bed and turned in desperation to the
apparatus, deciding to risk my life to pull out those nine pegs with my
hands, one after another.

My God! they were already out! Every one of them was hanging by its
spiral spring, just above the hole it had filled. The switchboard had
opened a little and released them. It was all automatic! The contact of
the copper surface of the balls had completed a short circuit which cut
the negative current. He had thought of it all, even to this emergency,
and the machine could take care of itself!

And in the wave of thankfulness and rejoicing which swept over me, I
sank on my knees and kissed the forehead of the feverish old man again
and again!

CHAPTER XIII

The Mystery of a Min