The little white hut near by I had built, and until the outbreak of war, when Post Office engineers had come and seized my private station, I had spent many hours there each evening reading and transmitting messages. The pole, in three sections, which in the falling darkness could only just be discerned, was about eighty feet in height and stayed by eight steel guys, each of which was in three sections connected together by green-glazed porcelain insulators, so that any leakage of electrical current could not go to earth. Affixed to the pole and protruding some two feet above it was a copper lightning-conductor with four points, an accessory which I had had put up recently for experimental purposes. "Nobody's about," I said to Teddy when I returned. "Will you run the dynamo, if all is in order?" Then, after a final examination of the various electrical connexions, he started the engine and the dynamo began to hum again. I drew over a switch at the side of the box, when a loud crackling was heard within--a quenched-spark of enormous power. Afterwards, I quickly seized my binoculars and going out through the open door, taking great care not to pass before the lens,--where in the place of glass was a disc of steel--something like that of a big camera, forming the end of the box, I focussed my glasses eagerly upon the flagstaff. "Hurrah! Teddy!" I cried in glee. "It works--Gad! come and look! At last! _We have it at last_!" Next moment, my friend was eagerly at my side, while at the same instant we heard a light footstep and Roseye, in her big motor-coat, stood unexpectedly before us. "It works! Roseye! It works, darling! Mind! Don't pass in front of the box. Do be careful!" I cried in warning, while at the same time Teddy Ashton, with the binoculars at his eyes, gasped: "By Jove, Claude! It's wonderful. Yes! You're right! _We have success at last_!" CHAPTER FOUR. CONCERNS THE SECRET. In our eagerness, Roseye and I set out to walk towards the pole, leaving Teddy in charge of the apparatus. To approach the spot, we had to leave the market-garden and take a road lined by meagre cottages, then at last, skirting two orchards and yet another market-garden, we came out upon a second road, which we crossed, and at last found ourselves at the disused wireless-hut. There a strange spectacle greeted our eyes for, the darkness having by that time become complete, we saw, around the lightning-conductor on the pole and over the steel stays, blue electric sparks scintillating. "Look, darling!" I cried. "See what we have at last produced by the unseen directive current!" "Yes," replied my well-beloved. "Look at the sparks! How pretty they are! Why--they seem to be jumping across the insulators from one stretch of wire-rope to the other!"