By HOLLIS GODFREY Illustrated from drawings by CHARLES GRUNWALD BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY 1908...

The Secretary of War ended his statement. “That is all there is to tell, gentlemen, concerning the building of the new transports.” I had closed my notebook and was rising, as Ordway, the private secretary, entered. “May I give the correspondents that freak letter that came this morning?” he asked. His chief nodded indulgently and left the room. I opened my notebook expectantly. “This is a very serious matter, and a great piece of news,” Ordway remarked in a mock grandiose manner. “It is a decla

“It’s no use, Orrington, there’s nothing in it,” said the managing editor decisively. “We can’t publish a fairy story like that. We’ve got to stick to probabilities, at least. What did the Secretary of War say when you told him?” “Oh, he said it was simply the insane freak of a crazy man,” I answered glumly enough, for I had set my whole heart on this scoop, and felt more and more convinced that it was true, the more I was rebuffed. I went on with a gleam of hope. “I’d like to have you see radiu

We waited anxiously for her next words. “The search-light of the Arrow will do it. We can run the launch along the coast twice as fast as a man can walk or run, and play the search-light of the yacht on the shore as we go.” Though simplicity itself, it was the only plan that promised success, and it took but little time to put it into operation. The fisherman volunteered as pilot, and while Tom went back in the launch to give instructions to the captain, we waited in the darkness of the little b

The disappearance of His Britannic Majesty’s battleship Dreadnought Number 8 sent the world wild. Two great nations had suffered severe blows, and lay in quivering expectation of the future. The chief of my paper smiled at me more amicably than ever before, as I entered the office the third day after the British battleship disappeared utterly in the channel. “You’d better run that prophecy of yours about the French battleship to-day,” he said, “and then keep out of the office. I don’t want you t

“This is an outrage,” I exclaimed indignantly. “Why should I be put under arrest?” “On complaint of the French government as being concerned in the sinking of the French battleship La Patrie Number 3 off Brest this morning,” replied the officer coolly. “As it is an international complaint, it came under the Federal courts, and we were empowered to make the arrest.” As he spoke, the whole thing flashed across me. My predictions of the destruction of the Dreadnought Number 8 and of La Patrie Numbe

“What’s the new find, Dorothy?” asked Tom, smiling at her eagerness. “A letter from Carl Denckel,” she replied. “Impossible!” cried Tom. “The dear old boy died nine months ago.” “But this was written nearly a year ago,” she rejoined. “Look at this envelope.” The big blue square inscribed in crabbed German script was filled with addresses. “See,” said Dorothy. “He thought you were still at Columbia, so he addressed it to Columbia, America, forgetting New York. His ‘u’ was so much like an ‘o’ that

The wreck of the wave-measuring machine once installed in the laboratory, every energy was bent towards putting it into perfect working condition. A maddening task it was. Thrown hither and thither in the corners of warehouses, the missing parts and waving broken wires of the apparatus, as it first stood on the laboratory table, gave but little promise of final renovation. But the possibilities which it held entranced both Dorothy and Tom. Each day I came up to find them working. Each night they

A fierce and sudden gust, which swelled to greater fury the flood of a howling gale, slammed the smoking-room door in my face, at the very moment that a quivering, throbbing heave from the great screw shook the mighty liner from stem to stern. Beaten back from the wall, as the ship rolled heavily, I pitched headlong, and went sliding and tumbling across the deck, clutching wildly at its edge for the netting of the rail. There, huddled against the side, I gasped until breath came, and then painfu

The engines of the motor boat slowed, gave a final chug, and stopped. “Brading Harbor,” remarked our boy guide laconically, as he threw the anchor, and stepped to the stern to pull in the skiff that trailed after us. Before us lay the estuary of the Yar, its black water scarcely differentiated in color from the dark shores that rose above it. A huddle of buildings lifting on our left changed from blots of blackness into shadowy outlines, sprinkled here and there with light, as we rowed in. The l

Once more I sought the booking office at Euston. “The Express has left Prince’s Stage at Liverpool, sir. Will be here in about three hours now, sir,” was the response to my question. I turned away, dismissed my cab, and started out through the great pillars of the entrance. Three hours more and Dorothy would be here. Tom and I, with the wave-measuring machine, had taken the first boat, which happily left the evening after our interview with Ordway. Dorothy, following a week later, had arrived at

As the horses started up, Dorothy refuted Tom’s statement indignantly. “It isn’t a blind alley. It’s a good clue. We’ve run down practically every other line, and now we may as well try this. Everything points to the belief that ‘the man’ is a scientist of no slight ability. Whether he or some one else discovered his high power radio-active force, he must be a good man, or he wouldn’t be able to use it. Now, it seems probable to me that he was working with phosphorescent ink simply because it wa

I threw up my curtain next morning to find London settling down into a sea of fog. Already the Thames was wholly hidden, and the water side of the embankment showed only faint, twinkling lights, just on the point of complete extinguishment. The caped policeman, the hurrying butcher’s boy, the laborers and the charwomen passing through the garden below, had all completely lost their individuality and became, in place of common London types, misty twentieth century Niobes. But dismal though it was

With a quick spring, Dorothy was first on a chair, and then on the table beside her brother. She bent to inspect the crystal hemisphere, looked at it from various points, and then both of them began examining the construction of the lamp shade. “It’s hermetically sealed above?” said Tom finally, a note of inquiry in his voice. “It seems to be,” answered Dorothy briefly. “Tom, jump down, will you, and let Mr. Hamerly come up here. Jim, will you and Mr. Swenton see if you can find another lamp sha

“By using the device which ministers at the same time to the vanity and the necessity of man, the clipping bureau,” I replied. “We will subscribe to that distributor of special information, and get every clipping for the last six months that bears upon falling blinds, signs lost, or stolen iron. They can ransack the files for us, and send us the result of their labor.” “Just the trick,” cried Tom enthusiastically. “We’ll go straight to work on it. Now let’s get out of here.” Bearing our precious

I was just dropping off to sleep that night when I heard a sharp rap at my door. Jumping up, I opened it, and Tom rushed in. “I’ve just thought of something, Jim. The hinges did disappear from that blind. We struck the wrong house to-day, but we mustn’t give up on that account. Suppose you go back again to the lodging house in the morning, and see if you can get any more light.” “Sure thing,” I answered. “But now, for heaven’s sake, let me go to sleep.” “Of course,” said Tom, in an aggrieved ton

Quietly we drew back from the parapet and, closing the scuttle behind us, started down the narrow stairs. At their base, Dorothy stopped suddenly. As Tom came up, he noticed her delay and paused with his hand on the latch. “What is it, girl?” he asked, almost tenderly. “You think we ought to go on, do you?” asked Dorothy hesitatingly. “Of course we’re going on,” said Tom. “There’s no question about it. That’s what we’re here for. What’s the matter, anyway?” “Frankly, I don’t know,” said Dorothy

As we stood there in the hush that followed the last bars of the song, Tom came towards us. Dorothy turned to him, starry eyed, and he looked quickly at me. I nodded. Tom smiled widely, as he stretched out his hand. “Nobody else in the world I’d as soon would have her, old man,” he said, as he nearly wrung my hand off. Then turning to his sister, “Well, little girl, so you’ve waked up at last to the real state of things.” Dorothy clung to his arm. “Tom, dear, I have, and I am very happy, but—” h

As I came over the side of the yacht, Dorothy was at the rail and in a moment was in my arms. “Thank God! Thank God! you are back,” she murmured. “You are back and the awful waiting is over, but how many wives and sweethearts will wait all the rest of their lives!” Tom was but a moment behind his sister. “Do you mean to say that every boat, without exception, has gone?” he questioned. “Every one within my range of vision. Between eighty and ninety in all,” I answered. “Good God! What a catastrop

“What is your idea, Dorothy?” asked Tom gravely. This last catastrophe, coming when all danger from the man who had stopped all war seemed past, had sobered us all. “You said there was a mast with wires beside the conning tower of the submarine, that time you saw ‘the man,’ didn’t you, Jim?” she asked. I nodded. “Well, that mast was the aerial of a wireless. I don’t know what he uses it for, but apparently he has one. Now that we have the Denckel apparatus fixed to send waves to any given point,

“You don’t mean that literally,” exclaimed Tom. Regnier nodded quietly. “I mean that I believe my memory was deliberately taken from me by the man who stopped all war, when he found I was on the track of his secret. But it’s rather a long story, and it’s well on towards morning. Shall we have it now, or put off the tale till to-morrow?” “To-night, by all means,” answered Tom. “That is, providing you feel up to it.” “I feel perfectly fit now,” said Regnier, “so if you all want to hear it, I’ll go