When but a boy I turned my talent toward a field that was destined to lead me into a labyrinth of strange events which are probably way ahead of the present day. Radio was my latest habit and I went into it head over heels never dreaming of anything else, barely noticing what I ate at the dinner table.
After a few years of hard work I soon had a laboratory as complete as any in the country. At the school I was classed as rather queer having such fancy titles as Professor and Doctor thrust upon me.
Up to this time my experiments had been confined chiefly to the ordinary trend of wireless such as perfecting high power transmitters and efficient receivers. I had also developed a high voltage transmitter that by a system of filtered side bend waves I was able to transmit electrical energy over the ether. As yet I had not the desire nor the money to patent this latest invention and consequently no one save myself knew anything of it.
Caring more for the betterment of the Art than for the money in it I naturally wished to further my experiments along perfecting my latest invention.
One-night while testing out a special receiver which would go with the new transmitter, I noticed the ultra Radiotron bulb which I was using would glow up with a bluish flame. Looking excitedly at the voltmeter in the plate circuit, I saw that the current jumped from 200 volts to about 1500. This, I surmised, was probably due to the motor generator, but on looking to this source, I saw that the meter read a steady 200 volts.
By this time I had become thoroughly excited and was for the moment undecided what to do. Then suddenly, the fluctuations stopped and although I waited for an hour they did not appear again.
The next night at the same hour—midnight, I turned my receiver around fifty hundred thousand meters, a wave length that is beyond the capacity of any transmitter or receivers so far developed by mortal man.
No sooner had I balanced my grid condenser to that of the secondary plate condenser, than the bulb began to fluctuate violently, even more so than the night before. By some electrical phenomenon this increase and decrease in potential blew the fuse in the lighting circuit and left my room in a state of semi-darkness, only lit up by the bulb.
The bluish light from the bulb played upon the walls of my little laboratory creating fantastic apparitions and as I sat there a tremor ran through my frame which I attempted to shake off.
Watching the light on the wall I perceived that a strange systematic color scheme was prevalent when the bulb reached its highest point of incandescence. This gave me an idea and taking from the table the automatic projecting relay which I was experimenting on, I connected it to the receiver. Instantly, the bluish flames stopped and in their place a white oval appeared on the wall. At the same time I noticed the light in the bulbs slowly died out and to my anger I found the batteries, when tested, were empty.
The next day my batteries were placed on the charger and I looked eagerly forward to the evening when they would be full.
Early that night I went to my room and throwing over the aerial switch, I did a little transatlantic phone work, which didn't hold much interest for me, so I snapped off my old set and turned toward my other apparatus.
First, I put a screen on the wall in front of the projector and then I took care to look at the modulatory transformers to be sure the resistances were properly adjusted. This done, I walked over to my bureau and reaching in the top drawer pulled out an automatic which I placed in my pocket and turned off the light.
It was blacker than the River Styx, and I stumbled over to my set quickly mapping on the bulbs.
The white oval appeared on the screen as the night before only giving a much clearer and steadier light. I looked down at the wave-meter and saw that it read five hundred thousand meters. This was too much so I sent it down to ten thousand.
As I remember now, it was a great moment for me! When I looked down upon that screen beheld a scene which took my breath away. I recollect that it took place in Egypt, thousands of years ago. There sat the Pharaoh in all his glory amidst the surroundings of his court while off in an adjoining chamber the musicians of the harem played wailing jazz.
Then the big idea and alas, the fatal idea came into my mind. Adjusting the vernier on my capacitance I was able to throw upon the screen any scene I desired.
I added another loading coil and used this for tuning as it was very selective. After a few minutes of calculating I hit upon a place that seemed rather unusual.
The screen assumed a grayish hue broken in places by blotches of black. An intense stillness fell upon the room. It was terrible! My hands fell away from the dials and dropped to my side like sticks. I tried to rise but I was absolutely paralyzed. Again, my eyes wandered upon the screen. My teeth began to chatter and my hair stood on end! Oh, if someone would only come into the laboratory, a friend or even a dog—anything to relieve the suspense!
Slowly! Slowly! Shadows formed! Twisting, twirling rings of blackness that finally plunged into one seething mass covering the whole of the screen.
The room was filled with a stifling odor of decay reminding me of a freshly opened grave. The shadows on the screen took on an oblong shape, which I recognized as that of a corpse.
Not daring to take my eyes from the screen I beheld the terrible apparition slowly rise and advance forward. I attempted to yell but when I went through the motion only a dry rattling echoed from my throat.
The figure was well upon me now, so close in fact that its cold breath chilled my frame and polluted my nostrils with reeking stench.
Then I happened to remember the automatic in my pocket! I tried my arm and found it free. Grasping the gun I pointed it and pulled the trigger! A flash! A deafening roar! Then peace!—And quiet!—and rest!
I asked the nurse and she told me how they had found me lying with an exploded gun in my hand amidst a wreckage of condensers, tubes, sockets, burned out rheostats and other apparatus. That had been weeks ago and I had just regained a consciousness today.
I can't explain why the gun exploded but when I regain my health and get some backing, I'm going to patent that invention—the Devil, himself, can't stop me.
THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM
(Continued from page 73)
Unreal! Even while I breathed there came to my nostrils the breath of the vapour of heated iron! A suffocating odour pervaded the prison! A deeper glow settled each moment in the eyes that glared et my agonies! A richer tint of crimson diffused itself over the pictured horrors of blood. I panted! I gasped for breath! There could be no doubt of the design of my tormentors—oh! most unrelenting! oh! most demoniac of men! I shrank from the glowing metal to the centre of the cell. Amid the thought of the fiery destruction that impended, the idea of the coolness of the well came over my soul like balm. I rushed to its deadly brink. I threw my straining vision below. The glare from the enkindled roof illumined its inmost recesses. Yet, for a wild moment, did my spirit refuse to comprehend the of what I saw. At length it forced—it wrestled its way into my soul—it burned itself in upon my shuddering reason.—Oh! for a voice to speak!—oh! horror!—oh! any horror but this! With a shriek, I rushed from the margin, and buried my face in my hands—weeping bitterly.
The heat rapidly increased, and once again I looked up, shuddering as with a fit of the ague. There had been a second change in the cell—and now the change was obviously in the form. As before, it was in vain that I, at first, endeavoured to appreciate or understand what was taking place. But not long was I left in doubt. The Inquisitorial vengeance had been hurried by my two-fold escape, and there was to be no more dallying with the King of Terrors. The room had been square. I saw that two of its iron angles were now acute—two, consequently, obtuse. The fearful difference quickly increased with a low rumbling or moaning sound. In an instant the apartment had shifted its form into that of a lozenge. But the alteration stopped not here—I neither hoped nor desired it to stop. I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me? Could I resist its glow? or, if even that, could I withstand its pressure? And now, flatter and flatter grew the lozenge, with a rapidity that left me no time for contemplation. Its centre, and of course, its greatest width, came just over the yawning gulf, I shrank back—but the closing walls pressed me resistlessly onward. At length for my seared and writhing body there was no longer an inch of foothold on the firm floor of the prison. I struggled no more, but the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long, and final scream of despair. I felt that I tottered upon the brink—I averted my eyes—
There was a discordant hum of human voices! There was a loud blast as of many trumpets! There was a harsh grating as of a thousand thunders! The fiery walls rushed back! An out-stretched arm caught my own as I fell, fainting into the abyss. It was that of General Lasalle. The French army had entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies.
