little mahogany table there I
had knocked sideways to the ground, in my stumble, a small phonograph
with a great 25-inch japanned-tin horn, which, the moment that I now
noticed it, I took and flung with a great racket down the stairs: for
that this it was which had addressed me I did not doubt; it being indeed
evident that its clock-work mechanism had been stopped by the volcanic
scoriae in the midst of the delivery of a record, but had been started
into a few fresh oscillations by the shock of the fall, making it utter
those thirteen words, and stop. I was sufficiently indignant at the
moment, but have since been glad, for I was thereby put upon the notion
of collecting a number of cylinders with records, and have been touched
with indescribable sensations, sometimes thrilled, at hearing the
silence of this Eternity broken by those singing and speaking voices, so
life-like, yet most ghostly, of the old dead.

* * * * *

Well, the most of that same day I spent in a high chamber at Woolwich,
dusting out, and sometimes oiling, time-fuses: a work in which I
acquired such facility in some hours, that each finally occupied me no
more than ninety to a hundred seconds, so that by evening I had, with
the previous day's work, close on 600. The construction of these little
things is very simple, and, I believe, effective, so that I should have
no difficulty in making them myself in large numbers, if it were
necessary. Most contain a tiny dry battery, which sends a current along
a bell or copper wire at the running-down moment, the clocks being
contrived to be set for so many days, hours, and minutes, while others
ignite by striking. I arranged in rows in the covered van those which I
had prepared, and passed the night in an inn near the Barracks. I had
brought candle-sticks from London in the morning, and arranged the
furniture--a settee, chest-of-drawers, basin-stand, table, and a number
of chairs--in three-quarter-circle round the bed, so getting a
triple-row altar of lights, mixed with vases of the house containing
small palms and evergreens; with this I mingled a smell of ambergris
from the scattered contents of some Turkish sachets which I had; in the
bed a bottle of sweet Chypre-wine, with _bonbons_, nuts, and Havannas.
As I lay me down, I could not but reflect, with a smile which I knew to
be evil, upon that steady, strong, smouldering lust within me which was
urging me through all those pai