“We will try,” Ross replied, speaking also for his friend. “The secrets of the pyramids and the sphinx have been laid bare, and maybe this beautiful creature shall float again,” and his voice took upon itself a more serious tone as he continued,—“Oakland, it is often said that the whole current of lives and destinies of persons and countries may be changed in a moment as if by chance, and, with your permission, we, Gilbert and I, for we talked it over last night after you left us, will give up our present work and devote the rest of our lives if need be to cut this Gordian knot, and if we fail, we may pave the way for others to bring this treasure under control again.” Before Dennis could reply, Gilbert said, eagerly, “I will stand by my friend Ross and you, Oakland, in this work all my life, if I may, and if we do not succeed we can die at our unfinished work!” “Thank you, my friends!” responded Dennis, somewhat overcome; “you shall not regret it. Let it be so. I had not intended spending another moment on her, but your enthusiastic devotion to science has warmed my blood, and from this moment I will work with you and we will all devote our lives to this one object, whether it demands little or the whole of them, and our interests shall be united.” All were deeply moved, and the whole of that and many subsequent days were taken up in going through papers and books containing particulars of the work done in previous years. Ever since the death of the first Jervis Meredith, the succeeding generations had recorded all the details of their work, and had dealt with the problem in such a masterly manner as appeared to leave nothing to be tried that had not been done already. After the three had gone through everything together, weighing each step of progress carefully, the enigma became more and more puzzling. For weeks they spent every moment working and discussing, bringing all the latest science to bear on the previous work; and month followed month till at the end of two years they had to acknowledge themselves hopelessly vanquished, for there seemed nothing more to try. During this time several storms had occurred in the neighbourhood, and they had witnessed the whole interior of the shed, to the insulating glass casing, as one mass of awful lightning and electric discharge, which had left the vessel serenely victorious. In one storm they were watching through glasses at a safe distance, the peculiar form the discharges took gave them an idea upon which they acted, after careful discussion together. Two months later the solution seemed solved; but was it?