"
For a moment Brent listened incredulously, then sat back in his chair
and laughed skeptically. But even Flint recognized that there was a
hollowness in the laughter.
"Do you mean to tell me," demanded Brent, "that a human brain has been
made to control a thing of no use except as a terrible engine of
destruction?"
"Not only possible," reiterated Flint, "but it is true."
"Oh, Flint," rallied Brent, with a sort of uneasiness, "you can't tell
_me_ that!"
"Believe it or not," insisted the adventurer, "I have been in Madagascar
and I know."
For a moment Brent paused at the vehemence of Flint's answer. What had
Flint to gain by misrepresentation? A thousand images of the past
flitted through Brent's brain. Then slowly a look of terror came over
Brent's face. Suppose it were indeed true--this Frankenstein, this
conscienceless inhuman superman? Brent gripped himself and composed his
features and his voice.
"But this thing," he rasped. "What does this prove?"
"Oh, this is merely automatic--a piece of mechanism--a model which I
stole. It works when it is wound up--not like the real one. Look."
Flint put a pencil in the little steel hand of the model and pressed a
lever as he held a piece of paper under the pencil.
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