ce on anything; how will you do it?" There
was a general movement of the diners. Dane's wife laughed a trifle
hysterically.

Simec arose and stood leaning forward, his hands upon the table.

"The situation which Colcord devised, as it happens, is not so
impossible as you think. In fact, it may prove to be quite feasible--"
He paused, but no voice rose to break the silence. The candle-lights
were flickering softly in an entering breath of wind. Evelyn looked
appealingly at her husband, who grimaced and shrugged slightly.

"I imagine I have some sort of a reputation in the way of physical
formula as applied to war," Simec went on presently. "Dane is about to
handle a rather extraordinary gun of mine in the foreign market. But one
gun differs from another only inasmuch as it is somewhat more
deadly--its destructiveness is not total." He raised a thin forefinger
and levelled it along the table.

"Let us assume," he said, "that there has been devised and perfected an
apparatus which will release a destructive energy through the medium of
ether waves. If you understand anything about the wireless telegraph you
will grasp what I mean; in itself the wireless, of course, involves
transmitted power. Let us transform and amplify that power and we
encompass--destruction. The air is filled with energy. A sun-ray is
energy; you will recall that Archimedes concentrated it through immense
burning-glasses which set fire to Roman ships."

His voice had grown clear and strong, as though he was lecturing to a
class of students.

"Now, then, assume an instrument such as I have roughly described be
placed in the hands of our allied nations, an instrument which releases
and propels against the enemy energy so incomprehensibly enormous that
it destroys matter instantaneously, whether organic or inorganic; assume
that in a few hours it could lay the greatest host the world ever saw in
death, whether they were concealed in the earth or were in the air, or
wherever they were; assume it could level a great city. Assuming all
this, can you conceive that the nations holding this mighty force in
their hands could bring about peace which would not only be instant but
would be permanent?"

There was silence for a moment. The footman, obeying a significant
glance from the butler, withdrew; the butler himself went softly out of
the room. Latham looked up with the expression of a man emerging from a
trance.

"I don't fancy any one could doubt th