The man called Winslow was ready--anxious--to talk. "I am an inventor. I have made millions of dollars"--Jerry looked at the disheveled apparel of the speaker and smiled--"for other people. The Stillwater syndicate stole my valveless motor. Then I developed my television set. Goodwin beat me out of that: he will have it on the market inside of a year. I swore they should never profit by this, my greatest invention." Jerry was impressed in spite of himself by the man's earnest simplicity. "What is it?" he asked. "I've broken the atom," said Winslow. "First tore the atoms of hydrogen and oxygen apart--dissociated them in the molecule of water--and have resolved them into their energy components. That's what you heard--the reaction. It it self-sustaining, exothermic. That hot blast carried off the heat of my retort." * * * * * Winslow rose from the bunk. Gone was his listless despondency. "Put up that gun," he said: "you don't need it now. I think we understand each other better than we did." He crossed with quick strides to the door leading into the cliff. "Come with me," he told Foster. "I am leaving to-day. You will not stop me. But before I go I will show you something no other man than myself has ever seen." He led the way through the doorway. There was another room beyond, Jerry saw. It was a cave. Plainly Winslow had taken these caves in the rocks and had made of them a laboratory. A lantern gave scant illumination: Jerry made out a small electric generator, and that was all. He felt a keen disappointment. Somehow this thin-faced man had communicated to him something of his own belief, his own earnestness. "What kind of a laboratory do you call this?" he demanded. But the other was busy. In the wall an opening had been closed with a small iron door, with cement around it. Winslow opened it and reached through. He was evidently adjusting something. The little dynamo began to hum. There was a crackling hiss from beyond the iron doorway. The opening was flooded with a clear blue light. Then the roar began. It was tremendous, deafening, in the echoing cave. "You may look now," said Winslow, and stood aside. * * * * * Jerry peered through. There was another cave beyond. In it was a small metal cylinder, a retort of some kind. The blue light came from a crooked bulb beyond. The retort itself was white-hot, despite a stream of water flowing upon it. A cloud of steam drove continuously out and up through a crevice in the rocks. The water flowed steadily from some subterranean stream in the limestone formation. It was diverted for its cooling purposes, but a portion also flowed continuously into the retort. Jerry's eyes found this, and he could see nothing else. For, before his eyes, the impossible was occurring.