Monsters of the Ray by A. Hyatt Verrill

Author:A. Hyatt Verrill [Verrill, A Hyatt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612101972
Publisher: eStar Books LLC

Chapter VII

Harris Explains His Theory

I did not avail myself of Harris' permission to try my hand at cutting the dyke with his ray machine. I didn't relish the idea of standing there alone and perhaps evoking another of those startling scenes from the past, and Harris' last cautionary words regarding the order of opening and closing the valves had hinted of danger in monkeying with the thing. But I was curious to examine the results of his operations, so I made my way to the big dyke. Harris had been right in his calculations—as he seemed always to be right in whatever he undertook— and I found that two great masses of the rock had broken free and had dropped to the ground at the foot of the cliff. They were about twelve feet in length by ten feet wide and four feet in thickness. The ends, where they had broken free by their weight, were rough and crystalline, but their four surfaces, that had been cut by the ray, were as smooth and almost as even as though they had been planed off.

A great cavity in the dyke marked the spot whence they had slipped out free, and I realized that if Harris had continued at the work, a few hours would have sufficed to have cut an opening completely through the wall of solid rock. I then made a careful examination of the surface of the dyke where, as nearly as I could judge, the miraculous picture or vision or whatever it was, had appeared. I could detect no peculiarities, no differences in the basalt at this spot, and in order to be sure that I had made no mistake in the location I again climbed upon the platform and tried to visualize the scene. And when, feeling sure of myself, I calculated the size of the scene that had appeared so mysteriously, I found that, as Harris had said, the human figures we had seen in the fumes had been fully life-size. But with that commonplace, prosaic rock before me, it was difficult to believe that the thing had ever occurred, that it was not all a dream. Still, there was the platform with the ray machine upon it; there were the deep grooves Harris had cut in the face of the dyke; and there were the great blocks of stone that had fallen from it. No, it had been no dream, and yet, try as I might, I could not force myself to believe in Harris' explanation of what we had so clearly seen.

For a couple of days thereafter nothing worth recording occurred. My mind still dwelt upon the visionary scene we had witnessed, but by dint of hard work and by keeping my brain occupied by writing up my archeological notes, I kept the other matter submerged. And Harris made no comments in regard to his work except to report that all was progressing as well as could be expected. On the third day, however,

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