Our joy was very
great when, after a long inspection, he informed us that he had
discovered uranium, and that it now remained only to submit it to certain
operations in a laboratory in order to prepare the substance that was to
give renewed life to those lilliputian monsters in the car, which fed
upon men's breath and begot power illimitable.
"I must now contrive," said Edmund, "to get admission to the laboratory
connected with the mine, and to do my work without letting them suspect
what I am about."
He managed it somehow, as he managed all things that he undertook, and
within forty-eight hours after our arrival he was hard at work, evidently
exciting the admiration of the native chemists by the knowledge and skill
which he displayed. At first they crowded around him so that he was
hampered in his efforts to conceal the real object of his labors; but at
last they left him comparatively alone, and I could see by his expression
whenever I visited the laboratory that things were going to his liking.
But the work was long and delicate. Edmund had to fabricate secretly some
of the chemical apparatus he needed, destroying it as fast as it served
its purpose, so that weeks of time rolled by before he had what he called
the "thimbleful of omnipotence" that was to make us masters of our fate.
Pages:
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238