In less than a week after the engagement of Roland Clewe and Margaret Raleigh work on the great machine which was to generate the Artesian ray had so far progressed that it was possible to make some preliminary experiments with it. Although Clewe was sorry to think of the very undesirable companion which Samuel Block had carried with him into the polar regions, he could not but feel a certain satisfaction when he reflected that there was now no danger of Rovinski gaining any knowledge of the momentous operations which he had in hand in Sardis. He had had frequent telegrams from Sammy, but no trouble of any kind had yet arisen. It was true that the time for trouble, if there were to be any, had probably not yet arrived, but Clewe could not afford to disturb his mind with anticipations of disagreeable things which might happen.

The masses of lenses, batteries, tubes, and coils which constituted the new instrument had been set up in the lens-house, and it was with this invention that Clewe had succeeded in producing that new form of light which would not only penetrate any material substance, but illuminate and render transparent everything through which it passed, and which would, it was hoped, extend itself into the earth to a depth only limited by the electric power used to generate it.

Margaret was very anxious to be present at the first experiment, but Clewe was not willing that this should be.

“It is almost certain,” he said, “that there will be failures at first, not caused perhaps by any radical defects in the apparatus, but by some minor fault in some part of it. This almost always happens in a new machine, and then there are uninteresting work and depressing waiting. As soon as I see that my invention will act as I want it to act, I shall have you in the lens-house with me. We may not be able to do very much at first, but when I really begin to do anything I want both of us to see it done.”

There was no flooring in that part of the lens-house where the machine was set up, for Clewe wished his new light to operate directly upon the earth. At about eight feet above the ground was the opening through which the Artesian ray would pass perpendicularly downward whenever the lever should be moved which would connect the main electric current.

When all was ready, Clewe sent every one, even Bryce, the master-workman, from the room. If his invention should totally fail, he wanted no one but himself to witness that failure; but if it should succeed, or even give promise of doing so, he would be glad to have the eyes of his trusted associates witness that success. When the doors were shut and locked, Clewe moved a lever, and a disk of light three feet in diameter immediately appeared upon the ground. It was a colorless light, but it seemed to give a more vivid hue to everything it shone upon—such as the little stones, a piece of wood half embedded in the earth, grains of sand, and pieces of mortar. In a few seconds, however, these things all disappeared, and there revealed itself to the eyes of Clewe a perfectly smooth surface of brown earth. This continued for some little time, now and then a rounded or a flattened stone appearing in it, and then gradually fading away.

As Clewe stared intently down upon the illuminated space, the brown earth seemed to melt and disappear, and he gazed upon a surface of fine sand, dark or yellowish, thickly interspersed with gravel-stones. This appearance changed, and a large rounded stone was seen almost in the centre of the glowing disk. The worn and smooth surface of the stone faded away, and he beheld what looked like a split section of a cobble-stone. Then it disappeared altogether, and there was another flat surface of gravel and sand.

Between himself and the illuminated space on which he gazed—his breath quick and his eyes widely distended—there seemed to be nothing at all. To all appearances he was looking into a cylindrical hole a few feet deep. Everything between the bottom of this hole and himself was invisible; the light had made intervening substances transparent, and had deprived them of color and outlines. It was as though he looked through air.

Then his eyes fell upon the sides of this cylindrical opening, and these, illuminated, but not otherwise acted upon by the volume of Artesian rays, showed, in all their true colors and forms, everything which went to make up the sides of the bright cavity into which he looked. He saw the various strata of clay, sand, gravel, exactly as he would have seen them in a circular hole cut accurately and smoothly into the earth. No stone or lump protruded from the side of this apparent excavation, the inner surface of which was as smooth as if it had been cut down with a sharp instrument.

Clewe was frightened. Was it possible that this could be an imaginary cavity into which he was looking? He drew back; he was about to put out one foot to feel if it were really solid ground upon which this light was pouring, but he refrained. He got a long stick, and with it touched the centre of the light. What he felt was hard and solid; the end of the stick seemed to melt, and this startled him. He pulled back the stick—he could go on no further by himself. He must have somebody in here with him; he must have the testimony of some other eyes; he needed the company of a man with a cool and steady brain.

He ran to the door and called Bryce. When the master-workman had entered and the door had been locked behind him, he exclaimed, “How pale you are! Does it work?”

“I think so,” said Clewe; “but perhaps I am crazy and only imagine it. You see that circular patch of light upon the ground there? I want you to go close to it and look down upon it, and tell me what you see.”

Bryce stepped quickly to the illuminated space. He looked down at it; then he approached nearer; then he carefully placed his feet by its edge and leaned over further, gazing intently downward, and he exclaimed, “Good heavens! How did you make the hole?”

At that moment he heard a groan, and, looking across the illuminated space, he saw Clewe tottering. In the next moment he was stretched upon the ground in a dead faint.

When Bryce had hurried to the side of his employer and had thrown a pitcher of water over him, it was not long before Clewe revived. In answer to Bryce's inquiries he simply replied that he supposed he had been too much excited by the success of his work.

“You see,” said he, “that was not a hole at all that you were looking into; it was the solid earth made transparent by the Artesian ray. The thing works perfectly. Please step to that lever and turn it off. I can stand no more at present.”

Bryce moved the lever, and the light upon the ground disappeared. He approached the place where it had been; it was nothing but common earth. He put his foot upon it; he stamped; it was as solid as any other part of the State.

“And yet I have looked down into it,” he ejaculated, “at least half a dozen feet!”

When Bryce turned and went back to Clewe, he too was pale.

“I do not wonder you fainted,” said he. “I do not believe it was what you saw that upset you; it was what you expected to see—wasn't that it?”

Clewe nodded in an indefinite way. “We won't talk about it now,” said he. “I don't want any more experiments to-day. We will cover up the instrument and go.”

When Roland Clewe reached his room, he sat down in the arm-chair to think. He had made a grand and wonderful success, but it was not upon that that his mind was now fixed. It was upon the casual and accidental effect of the work of his invention, of which he had never dreamed. Bryce had made a great mistake in thinking that it was not what Roland Clewe had seen, but what he had expected to see, which had caused him to drop insensible. It was what he had seen.

When the master-workman had approached the lighted space upon the ground, Clewe stood opposite to him, a little distance from the apparatus. As Bryce looked down, he leaned forward more and more, until the greater part of his body was directly over the lighted space. Looking at him, Clewe was startled, amazed, and horrified to find all that portion of his person which projected itself into the limits of the light had entirely disappeared, and that he was gazing upon a section of a man's trunk, brightly illuminated, and displayed in all its internal colors and outlines. Such a sight was enough to take away the senses of any man, and he did not wonder that he had fainted.

“Now,” said he to himself, “all the time that I was looking into that apparent hole, never thinking that in order to see down into it I was obliged to project a portion of myself into the line of the Artesian ray, that portion of me was transparent, invisible. If Bryce had come in! and then”—as the thought came into his mind his heart stopped beating—“if Margaret had been there!”

For an hour he sat in his chair, racking his brain.

“She must see the working of the ray,” he said. “I must tell her of my success. She must see it as soon as possible. It is cruel to keep her waiting. But how shall I manage it? How shall I shield her from the slightest possibility of what happened to me? Heavens!” he exclaimed, “if she had been there!”

After a time he determined that before any further experiments should take place he would build a circular screen, a little room, which should entirely surround the space on which the Artesian ray was operated. Only one person at a time should be allowed to enter this screened apartment, which should then be closed. It would make no difference if one should become invisible, provided there was no one else to know it.

It was on the evening of the next day that Margaret beheld the action of the Artesian ray. She greatly objected at first to going inside of the screened space by herself, and urged Roland to accompany her; but this he stoutly refused to do, assuring her that it was essential for but one person at a time to view the action of the ray. She demurred a good deal, but at last consented to allow herself to be shut up within the screen.

What Margaret saw was different from the gradual excavation which had revealed itself before the eyes of Roland. She looked immediately into a hole nearly ten feet deep. The action of the apparatus was such that the power of penetration gained by the ray during its operation at any time was retained, so that when the current was shut off the photic boring ceased, and recommenced when the batteries were again put into action at the point where it had left off. The moment Margaret looked down she gave a little cry, and started back against the screen. She was afraid she would fall in.

“Roland,” she exclaimed, “you don't mean to say that this is not really an opening into the earth?”

He was near her on the other side of the screen, and he explained to her the action of the light. Over and over she asked him to come inside and tell her what it was she saw, but he always refused.

“The bottom is beautifully smooth and gray,” she exclaimed; “what is that?”

“Sand,” said Roland.

“And now it is white, like a piece of pottery,” she exclaimed.

“That is white clay,” said he.

“Don't you want to take my place,” said she, “if you will not come with me?”

“No,” said Roland. “Look down as long as you wish; I know pretty well what you will see for some time to come. Has there been any change?”

“The bottom is still white,” she replied, “but it is glittering.”

“That is white sand,” said he. “The Artesian well which supplies the works revealed to me long ago the character of the soil at this spot, so that for a hundred feet or more I know what we may expect to see.”

She came out hurriedly. “When you begin to speak of wells,” she said, “I am frightened. If I should see water, I should lose my head.” She sat down and put her hand before her eyes. “My brain is dazzled,” she said. “I don't feel strong enough to believe what I have seen.”

Roland shut off the current and opened the screen. “Come here, Margaret,” he said; “this is the spot upon which the light was shining. I think it will do you good to look at it. Tread upon it; it will help to reassure you that the things about us are real.”

Margaret was silent for a few moments, and then, approaching Roland, she took him by both hands. “You have succeeded,” said she; “you are the greatest discoverer of this age!”

“My dear Margaret,” he interrupted, quickly, “do not let us talk in that way; we have only just begun to work. Above all things, do not let us get excited. If everything works properly, it will not be long before I can send the Artesian ray down into depths with which I am not acquainted—how far I do not know—but we must wait and see what is the utmost we can do. When we have reached that point, it will be in order to hoist our flags and blow our trumpets. I hope it will not be long before the light descends so deep that we shall be obliged to use a telescope.”

“And will it not be possible, Roland,” Margaret said, earnestly, “that we shall ever look down into the earth together? When the light gets beyond the depth to which people have dug and bored, I shall never want to stand there alone behind the screen and see what next shall show itself.”

“That screen is an awkward affair,” said Roland. “Perhaps I may think of a method by which it can be done away with, and by which we can stand side by side and look down as far into the depths of the earth as our Artesian ray can be induced to bore.”