Now, stricken
with the fear of death, the human cattle fought frantically to reach the
inadequate exits of the great theater of tragedy.
There was fighting in the streets, and panic, and stark rumor, of course;
and there was heroism, and coolness, and the taking of thought. To the
little group of men in the top floor of the Atlas Building the roar of
riot came up like the thunder of the orchestra before the rise of the
curtain. Most of the people in the streets fled from a danger they did not
understand. This little group in the wireless office realized clearly what
still and frozen dissolution the rising of the curtain would disclose.
They were not many; and they did not know what they were to do, if
anything; but they had not run away.
Eldridge was there, looking somewhat flustered for the first time in his
life, and four of the large committee that had employed him. Simmons sat
calmly at his post, and of all the reporters Hallowell alone had stood by.
He had faith in Darrow, and he knew that in the _Despatch_ office a little
handful of men stood in the shadow of death on the off chance of the
biggest scoop since Noah's flood.
The four solid citizens looked at one another. The oldest turned to
Eldridge.
"Then your opinion is that the city is doomed?"
"I can offer no other solution, sir," said the scientist. "It is at last
evident that this man's power over ethereal vibrations extends to those
forming heat-rays.
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