The Devil Takes a Holiday [antikvár]

T CHAPTER I "^HE eminent young astronomer, Douglas Ferguson, was alone in the great mountain observatory of Southern California on the night when the strangest experience of his life began. The regular staff had gone down to Pasadena for the week-end. Ferguson, who had come over from Scotland to do some special research work, had thought it best to concentrate on his task. It was of an extremely secret nature. The exploration and analysis of the elements in certain planets, by means of spectroscopic photography, had already yielded results of importance in modern warfare. Science was now, however, on the track of something which might revolutionize the whole approach to the secret springs of the atom, and, for this reason, governments had become almost embarrassingly affectionate in their attitude towards men of science. Ferguson had spent a long evening in the rotunda that housed the giant telescope. He had seized the opportunity to look at things which might have seemed familiar to the regular staff. To Ferguson, who had hitherto used only the smaller telescopes of Europe, they were revelations of new beauty. He had not a good head for heights, and the descent from the high platform on which he had to stand to peer into the reflector made him dizzy. On reaching the ground he looked up with a certain awe at that titanic weapon of scientific precision, aimed as it was now, directly at the red planet Mars. The clock machine, the device by which the giant telescope moved in opposition