Hinez and Deriugin stood like a pair of statues, not daring to move from their places nor to remove their eyes from the strange phenomenon.
“Herr Hinez,” exclaimed the surprised servant, who had followed them into the laboratory, “something is burning there!”
And before either of them had a chance to stop him, he ran over to the table and drove the end of his iron rod into the face of the fiery sphere.
A dry, loud crack followed. A dazzling spark, resembling a short lightning, flashed out at the end of the rod and the old man dropped backwards, spreading his hands and knocking his head against the hard floor. His body twisted up in spasms and remained motionless. All this took place, it seemed, within the twinkle of an eye. When Hinez rushed over to the old man, bending over him and trying to raise him up, he no longer breathed.
“Dead!” confusedly announced the assistant, retreating unwillingly and turning back his head to his colleague. Deriugin, standing at the door, repeated mechanically one and the same phrase:
“I knew it…! I knew it…!”
About ten minutes passed before the visitors regained a little of their composure. They carried out the body of the old man into the assistant’s room, and tried every means to revive him, but all their attempts failed; the unfortunate man was dead.
“What is this anyhow?” demanded Hinez, at last, when he realized the futility of their efforts.
“This,” repeated Deriugin, and the sound of his voice resembled the burst of thunder before a rainstorm, “this is a mutiny of the atoms, revolting against the man who dared to disturb them..
“You mean to say, that. began Hinez with uncertainty.
“I believe,” interrupted Deriugin harshly, “that the destruction of matter has begun and, in all probability, nothing in the whole world will be- able to check it. This old man is the first victim of the millions that are to follow.”
“But, why do you speak about a catastrophe, colleague? And even if what you expect to happen, does happen, it will not pass beyond the bounds of the laboratory and can be disposed of right here.”
“Disposed of? And this I hear from you, assistant to Professor Flinder? Don’t you realize that we are powerless when it comes to the element? Can we, in any way or with any thing influence the work that goes on within the atoms? Can we stop the growth of this fiery vortex?”
“Growth?” this new idea impelled Hinez to withdraw hastily into the main laboratory.
Indeed, this was quite apparent: the flaming sphere, in the last half hour, had increased about a fraction of an inch in diameter. Besides, it was becoming more and more difficult to breathe in the room. The air was all pregnant with electricity. The twinkling of little bluish lights upon all the prominent parts of the apparatus and other appliances, transformed the whole picture into a fairy-scene.
Deriugin and Hinez left the laboratory, shutting the door tightly behind them. Actions and measures to forestall an impending calamity began immediately. Hinez took upon himself the task of informing all the professors of the Institute of the actual prevailing condition; Deriugin, meanwhile, departed to see Eike, a friend of his and the editor of a leading newspaper. To find him was not an easy task. But about one o’clock in the afternoon, he found him in his editorial office. At first Eike was hesitant and undecided about going with him. Professional curiosity finally, triumphed however.
They entered a machine that puffed at the street-door entrance, and whisked away in the direction of the Institute. On the Frankfurt Strasse they noticed a pillar of smoke standing almost motionless in the air. Along the streets, hissing, whistling and pealing their bells, hurried the fire-engines. Men in copper helmets, with hatchets in their hands, clung to the sides, like operatic warriors on the stage.
“There must be a fire somewhere,” remarked Eike, flaming up again with the curiosity, which is so much part of a newspaper man.
“It’s there…” insisted Deriugin with growing alarm. “We are late! It’s there!”
His premonition did not deceive him. Their noses were soon assailed by a scorching sensation. Opposite the house in which Flinder lived, a large throng of people had assembled. From the garden, now and then, firemen were running to their engines; beyond the iron fence and between the trees, where the laboratory stood, tongues of flames danced and smoke rose and whirled, gradually being carried away into the street which was becoming enveloped in a thick and corrosive cloud.
In this hubbub, Eike immediately lost sight of Deriugin, so he decided to go around the burning house to the windy side to quietly view the scene of fire, from there. Suddenly, from the side of the laboratory came loud shrieks from the firemen and the crowds of curious people who had broken into the garden. Eike threw himself in the direction of the shrieks and almost collided with Deriugin, who ran up at demoniacal speed.
“Look out! It has broken out into the open! Look out, Eike!” he shouted, waving everybody away with his hands.
At that moment, a gust of wind wafted a cloud of smoke upon the two, and the editor saw a sphere of fire, about eighteen inches in diameter, quivering and tossing, borne by the wind, directly towards the dumbfounded spectators.
“Save yourselves!” shouted someone in the crowd. “It’s ball lightning!”
The crowd of people scattered in all directions. Eike remained on the spot, as if nailed to the ground, but only for a few fleeting seconds. Soon, he too, threw himself aside, as the flaming whirl, flying past and only a few feet away from him, breathed forth its sultry heat and blinded the eyes with its dazzling glitter. As it moved over the sand of the road, thousands of fiery sparks fell from it upon the earth and upon objects it met on its way.
Dazed and stunned, Eike fell down, stumbling over bumps. Lying there, his terror-filled eyes continued to follow the flight of the sphere.
He saw how the trees, with which the fiery sphere collided, caught fire; how a sudden gust of wind flung it upon a group of people that tried to cross its path; how a shower of fiery rays poured down upon them and, without having had a chance to even utter a cry, three of them dropped flat on the ground and remained motionless.
The last thing Eike succeeded in seeing was how the fiery globe reached the iron fence. A loud crackling was heard, as if a shock of lightning had passed between the iron bars and the fiery cloud, and in the next moment the sphere found itself on the outer side of the fence in which yawned a large opening, lined by tom and melted fragments of metal. The streets were filled with wild shoutings, stamping of feet, pealing of bells and loud cracklings.
THE following two days were astonishing days. To some of the people who witnessed the strange events, it was perfectly clear that something unusual was occurring; it seemed dear that beginning with this day, the real agony of the Earth would lead up to imminent destruction. Yet, they did not seem to have made up their minds to speak about it in the open. Such a supposition seemed entirely too wild and absurd. Although in Eike’s newspaper, on the day following the event, there appeared an article which quite carefully explained the significance of the events, the edition was immediately suppressed by order of the authorities, who found in the news nothing but a common newspaper-bait, capable of creating a panic and of causing an undesirable commotion. Those few, who succeeded in getting copies, simply shrugged their shoulders in wonderment; how could a respectable newspaper lower itself by running after cheap sensationalism?