“Is — O— L— there?”
The instrument hissed as the message spanned the abyss of space; in the glass drum above, great crackling electric sparks leaped and roared fitfully, lighting the tense faces of the men in the cabinet. Came dead silence — painful silence — then the operator read the answer aloud:
“Yes.”
“Mein Gott ich lobe!” One great exclamation of thanks, and Admiral Hausen–Aubier buried his face in his hands.
To Baron Von Hartzfeldt the whole thing was wizardry pure and simple. The Thinking Machine had summoned the lost out of the void. While a hundred trained men, keen-eyes, indefatigable, wary as ferrets, were searching for the crown prince, along comes this withered, white-faced little man of science, with his monstrous head and his feeble hands, and works a miracle under his
