Page:The Zeppelin Destroyer.djvu/33

 "Gad! that's bad!' gasped Teddy, pale in alarm. 'Something's wrong!'

'Yes, and confoundedly dangerous to ourselves and to the petrol—eh?' I cried, shutting off the dynamo instantly.

'Phew! It was a real narrow shave!' remarked Teddy. 'One of the narrowest we've ever had!'

'Yes, my dear fellow, but it tells us something,' I said. 'We've made an accidental discovery—that spark shows that we can increase our power a thousandfold, when we like.'

'It has, no doubt, given the wireless operators at the Admiralty, at Marconi House, and elsewhere a very nasty jar,' laughed Teddy. 'They'll wonder what's up, won't they?'

'Well, we can't help their troubles.' I laughed.

'I expect we've jammed them badly,' Teddy said. Look the aerial is connected up!'

'By Jove! so it is?" I said.

I saw what I had not noticed before, that the network of phosphor-bronze aerial wires strung beneath the roof of the shed had remained connected up with the coils from an experiment we had conducted on the previous afternoon.

'I'll pump Treeton about it to-morrow. He'll be certain to have heard if there has been any unusual signals at Marconi House,' I said. 'They'll no doubt believe that spark to be signals from some new Zeppelin!'

'No doubt. But we may thank our stars that we're safe. Both of us could very easily have been