e
construction of a new ballistic engine, and imagined they could afford
to ignore that of the French inventor.

As the result of this second rebuff Roch's anger became coupled with
hatred--an instinctive hatred of humanity--especially after his
_pourparlers_ with the British Admiralty came to naught. The English
being practical people, did not at first repulse Thomas Roch. They
sounded him and tried to get round him; but Roch would listen to
nothing. His secret was worth millions, and these millions he would
have, or they would not have his secret. The Admiralty at last
declined to have anything more to do with him.

It was in these conditions, when his intellectual trouble was growing
daily worse, that he made a last effort by approaching the American
Government. That was about eighteen months before this story opens.

The Americans, being even more practical than the English, did not
attempt to bargain for Roch's fulgurator, to which, in view of the
French chemist's reputation, they attached exceptional importance.
They rightly esteemed him a man of genius, and took the measures
justified by his condition, prepared to indemnify him equitably later.

As Thomas Roch gave only too visible proofs of mental alienation,
the Administration, in the very interest of his invention, judged it
prudent to sequestrate him.

As is already known, he was not confined in a lunatic asylum, but was
conveyed to Healthful House, which offered every guarantee for the
proper treatment of his malady. Yet, though the most careful attention
had been devoted to him, no improvement had manifested itself.

Thomas Roch, let it be again remarked--this point cannot be too often
insisted upon--incapable though he was of comprehending and performing
the ordinary acts and duties of life, recovered all his powers when
the field of his discoveries was touched upon. He became animated, and
spoke with the assurance of a man who knows whereof he is descanting,
and an authority that carried conviction with it. In the heat of his
eloquence he would describe the marvellous qualities of his fulgurator
and the truly extraordinary effects it caused. As to the nature of the
explosive and of the deflagrator, the elements of which the latter was
composed, their manufacture, and the way in which they were employed,
he preserved complete silence, and all attempts to worm the secret out
of him remained ineffectual. Once or twice, during the height of the
paroxys