Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked RecordGreg, Percy
Science
Across the Zodiac: The Story of a Wrecked Record
Greg, Percy
Science fiction
several books of drawings, mathematical, mechanical, and ornamental,
which I had left, and which had not been brought away by my host's son
when he visited the vessel. These I begged him to present to the
Camptâ, adding to them a few smaller curiosities, after which I drew
him back towards the machinery. He summoned his attendant, and bade
him take away to the carriages the articles I had given him, calling
upon the intruders to assist.
I was thus left with him and with Eveena alone in the building; and
with a partly serious, partly mischievous desire to prove to him the
substantial reality of objects so closely related to my own disputed
existence, and to demonstrate the truth of my story, I loosened one of
the conductors, connected it with the machinery, and, directing it
against him, sent through it a very slight apergic current. I was not
quite prepared for the result. His Highness was instantly knocked head
over heels to a considerable distance. Turning to interrupt the
current before going to his assistance, I was startled to perceive
that an accident of graver moment, in my estimation at least, than the
discomfiture of this exalted official, had resulted from my
experiment. I had not noticed that a conductive wire was accidentally
in contact with the apergion, while its end hung down towards the
floor Of this I suppose Eveena had carelessly taken hold, and a part
of the current passing through it had lessened the shock to the Regent
at the expense of one which, though it could not possibly have injured
her, had from its suddenness so shaken her nerves as to throw her into
a momentary swoon. She was recovering almost at soon as I reached her;
and by the time her fellow-sufferer had picked himself up in great
disgust and astonishment, was partly aware what had happened. She was,
however; much more anxious to excuse herself, in the manner of a
frightened child, for meddling with the machinery than to hear my
apologies for the accident. Noting her agitation, and seeing that she
was still trembling all over, I was more anxious to get her into the
open air, and out of reach of the apparatus she seemed to regard with
considerable alarm, than to offer any due apology to the exalted
personage to whom I had afforded much stronger evidence, if not of my
own substantiality, yet of the real existence of a repulsive energy,
than I had seriously intended. With a few hurried words to him, I
raised Eveena to the window, and lifted her to the ground outside. I
felt, however, that I could not leave the Regent to find his own way
out, the more so that I hardly saw how he could reach the window from
the inside without my assistance. I excused myself, therefore, and
seating her on a rock close to the ladder, promised to return at once.
This, however, I found impossible. By the time the injured officer had
recovered the physical shock to his nerves and the moral effect of the
disrespect to his person, his anxiety to verify what he had heard
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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