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 hear nothing but the sound of his own breath. But what—what if Grottup should be blown into the air? He clutched his head and ran on further, descending into a deep valley, scrambling up on the other side, and then limping over more ploughed fields. He felt the acute pain of his old wound and a burning sensation in his chest. He could go no further, sat down on a stone and looked at Grottup, mistily glowing with its arc lamps. It seemed like a bright island in the midst of boundless darkness. It was oppressively dark, and yet within a radius of thousands and thousands of miles a terrible and unremitting attack was being launched. Daimon on his Magnetic Hill was precisely and silently bombarding the whole world. In all directions waves were being sent out which would ignite the first grain of Krakatit which they encountered anywhere in the world. And there, in the dead of night, bathed in this pale light, an obdurate, wrongheaded man was working, bending over a secret process of transformation. “Thomas, look out!” cried Prokop, but his voice was lost in the darkness like a stone thrown into a pond by some childish hand.

He sprang up, trembling with fear and cold, and dashed on further, as far as he could from Grottup. He found himself in the middle of some swampy place and stopped. Had he heard the noise of an explosion? No, all was quiet, and with a new access of terror he clambered up a slope, slipped on to his knees, sprang up again and dashed on, rushing into some bushes, tearing his hands, slipping about, and then descending again. He drew himself up,