Page:Barr--Stranleighs millions.djvu/231

Rh almost pure. I found difficulty in breathing, and sometimes came near to fainting, but always revived after a breath of the open air. I hadn't the sense to do what I should do now, which is to set my air-extracting machine at work in a room that I did not need to enter, placing the telegraphic apparatus there, and working it from the adjoining apartment. I was like a man jumping into a reservoir of poisoned air, and jumping out again before he was done for. The result you see. It all depends on whether my malady has been caused merely by absence of air, or whether the ether is in itself poisonous, and is still working in my system."

"What is this poison composed of?"

"I don't know. That is what I must find out." "Then you intend to stop experimenting until you have cured yourself?"

"No, not necessarily. Indeed, I think it would be well to have something to occupy my mind while I was undergoing treatment. If you lend money enough to make the room secure, I could still, with an assistant, keep on perfecting the apparatus, and with this plan that you propose regarding the yacht, I think we could settle the long distance question; but, on the other hand, there is some danger of premature disclosure in the circumscribed dimensions of a vessel at sea, where everyone becomes rather bored and inquisitive if the voyage is long continued."

"I don't see much danger in that. It isn't as if we