Page:White and Hopkins--The mystery.djvu/224

190 Dr. Schermerhorn laughed a pleased and excited laugh. I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was strung high, and guessed that his triumph needed an audience.

"You may say so well!" he said. "It iss heafy; and it iss heafy with the world-desire, the great substance than can do efferything. Where iss Percy?"

"He's gone aboard."

"We must embark. The time is joost right. A day sooner and the egsperiment would haf been spoilt; but now"—he laughed—"let the island sink, we do not care. We must embark hastily."

"It'll take a man long time to carry down all your things, Perfessor."

"Oh, led them go! The eruption has alretty swallowed them oop. The lava iss by now a foot deep in the valley. Before long it flows here, so we must embark."

"But you've lost all them vallyable things, Perfessor," said Handy Solomon. "Now, I call that hard luck."

Dr. Schermerhorn snapped his fingers.

"They do not amoundt to that!" he cried. "Here, here, in this leetle box iss all the treasure! Here iss the labour of ten years! Here iss the Laughing Lass, and the crew, and all the equipmendt comprised. Here iss the world!"

"I'm a plain seaman, Perfessor, and I suppose I got to believe you; but she's a main small box for all that."

"With that small box you can haf all your wishes," asserted the Professor, still in the German lyric strain