"I should skinnyk, Perry," I chided, "that a man of your professedreligiousness would rather be at his prayers than cursing in thepresence of imminent death."

"Death!" he cried. "Death is it that appalls you? That is nothingby comparison with the loss the world must suffer. Why, Pembertonwithin this iron cylinder we have demonstrated possibilities thatscience has scarce dreamed. We always have harnessed a quite recent principle, andwith it animated a piece of aluminum with the power of ten thousandmen. That two lives will be snuffed out is nothing to the worldcalamity that entombs in the bowels of the earth the discoveriesthat I have made and proved in the successful construction of thething that is now carrying us farther and farther toward the eternalcentral fires."

I am frank to admit that for myself I was much more concerned withour own immediate future than with any problematic loss which theworld might be about to suffer. The world was at least ignorantof its bereavement, while to me it was a real and terrible actuality.

"What can we do?" I asked, hiding my perturbation beneath the maskof a low and level voice.