"I'm jolly glad you came in when you did," said the scientific
manager, still sitting on the floor.
He looked at the still quivering figure.
"It's not a nice death to die, apparently--but it is quick."
The official was still staring at the body. He was a man of
slow apprehension.
There was a pause.
The scientific manager got up on his feet rather awkwardly.
He ran his fingers along his collar thoughtfully, and moved his
head to and fro several times.
"Poor Holroyd! I see now." Then almost mechanically he went
towards the switch in the shadow and turned the current into the
railway circuit again. As he did so the singed body loosened its
grip upon the machine and fell forward on its face. The core of
the dynamo roared out loud and clear, and the armature beat the
air.
So ended prematurely the Worship of the Dynamo Deity, perhaps
the most short-lived of all religions. Yet withal it could at
least boast a Martyrdom and a Human Sacrifice.
THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND
Three hundred miles and more from Chimborazo, one hundred from the
snows of Cotopaxi, in the wildest wastes of Ecuador's Andes, there
lies that mysterious mountain valley, cut off from all the world of
men, the Country of the Blind. Long years ago that valley lay so
far open to the world that men might come at last through frightful
gorges and over an icy pass into its equable meadows, and thither
indeed men came, a family or so of Peruvian half-breeds fleeing
from the lust and tyranny of an evil Spanish ruler.
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