"George Griffith - A Corner in Lightning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Griffith George)

telephonic communication north of the Equator had practically ceased, and the electricians of Europe and
America were at their wits' ends to discover any reason for this unheard of disaster, for such in sober
truth it would be unless the apparently suspended force quickly resumed action on its own account. The
next morning it was found that, so far as all the marvels of electrical science were concerned, the world
had gone back a hundred years.

Then people began to awake to the magnitude of the catastrophe that had befallen the world. Civilised
mankind had been suddenly deprived of the services of an obedient slave which it had come to look
upon as indispensable.
But there was something even more serious than this to come. Observers in various parts of the
hemisphere remembered than there hadn't been a thunder-storm anywhere for some weeks. Even the
regions most frequently visited by them had had none. A most remarkable drought had also set in almost
universally. A strange sickness, beginning with physical lassitude and depression of spirits which
confounded the best medical science of the world was manifesting itself far and wide, and rapidly
assuming the proportions of a gigantic epidemic.

In the physical world, too, metals were found to be afflicted with the same incomprehensible disease.
Machinery of all sorts got "sick," to use a technical expression, and absolutely refused to act, and forges
and foundries everywhere came to a standstill for the simple reason that metals seemed to have lost their
best properties, and could no longer be utilised as they had been. Railway accidents and breakdowns on
steamers, too, became matters of every day occurrence, for metals and driving wheels, piston rods and
propeller shafts, had acquired an incomprehensible brittleness which only began to be understood when it
was discovered that the electrical properties which iron and steel had formerly possessed had almost
entirely disappeared.

So far Calvert had not wavered in his determination to make, as he thought, a colossal amount of money
by his usurpation of one of the functions of Nature. To him the calamities which, it must be confessed, he
had deliberately brought upon the world were only so many arguments for the ultimate success of the
stupendous scheme. They were proof positive to the world, or at least they very soon would be, that the
Calvert Storage Trust really did control the electricity of the Northern Hemisphere. From the Southern
nothing had yet been heard beyond the news that the cables had ceased working.

Hence, as soon as he had demonstrated his power to restore matters to their normal condition, it was
obvious that the world would have to pay his price under penalty of having the supply cut off again.

It was now getting towards the end of May. On the 1st of June, according to arrangement, Markovitch
would stop his engines and permit the vast accumulation of electric fluid in his storage batteries to flow
back into its accustomed channels. Then the Trust would issue its prospectus, setting forth the terms upon
which it was prepared to permit the nations to enjoy that gift of Nature whose pricelessness the Trust had
proved by demonstrating its own ability to corner it.

On the evening of May 25th Culvert was sitting in his sumptuous office in Victoria Street, writing by the
light of a dozen wax candles in silver candelabra. He had just finished a letter to his wife, telling her to
keep up her spirits and fear nothing; that in a few days the experiment would be over and everything
restored to its former condition, shortly after which she would be the wife of a man who would soon be
able to buy up all the other millionaires in the world.

As he put the letter into the envelope there was a knock at the door, and Professor Kenyon was
announced. Culvert greeted him stiffly and coldly, for he more than half guessed the errand he had come
on. There had been two or three heated discussions between them of late, and Culvert knew before the