took new
heart and plunged more frenziedly still into the work of preparation.

There were direction-finders that had taken the message from several
stations; their pointers converged upon one definite location in
southern Ohio. Over an area of twenty square miles, that place was
combed for a sending radio where the message could have
originated--combed in vain.

* * * * *

The next demand came at ten on the following morning.

"To the President of the United States: You have disregarded my
warning. You will not do so again; I have power to enforce my demands.
I had hoped that bloodshed and destruction might cease, but it is
plain that only that will save you from your own headstrong folly. I
must strike. At noon to-day the Capitol in Washington will be
destroyed. See that it is emptied of human life. I have spoken. Paul."

A maniac, surely; yet a maniac with strange powers. For the graphs of
the radio direction-finders showed a curve. And when they were
assembled the reading could only mean that the instrument that had
sent the threat had moved over fifty miles during the few minutes of
its sending. This, I think, was what brought the order to vacate the
big domed building in Washington.

Of course the Capitol Building had been searched; there was not a nook
nor corner from roof to basement but had been gone over in search of
an explosive machine. And now it was empty, and a guard of soldiers
made a solid cordon surrounding it. No one could approach upon the
ground; and, above, a series of circling patrol-planes, one squadron
above another, guarded against approach by air. With such a defense
the Capitol and its grounds seemed impregnable.

My watch said 11:59; I held it in my hand and watched the seconds tick
slowly by. The city was hushed; it seemed that no man was so much as
breathing ... 11:59 :60!--and an instant later I heard the shriek of
something that tore the air to screaming fragments. I saw it as it
came on a straight, level line from the east; a flash like a meteor of
glistening white. It passed beneath the planes, that were motionless
by contrast, drove straight for the gleaming Capitol dome, passed
above it, and swept on in a long flattened curve that bent outward and
up.

It was gone from my sight, though the shrieking air was still tearing
at my ears, when I saw the great building unfold. Time meant nothing;
my racing mind made slow and deliberate the explosion