Produced by Suzanne Shell, Erica Jacobson, Sandra Brown,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed ProofreadingTeam
By
Garrett P. Serviss
1912
[Illustration: "THEY MEANT TO CARRY THE ARK WITH A RUSH" [Page 106] ]
What is here set down is the fruit of long and careful research amongdisjointed records left by survivors of the terrible events described.The writer wishes frankly to say that, in some instances, he hasfollowed the course which all historians are compelled to take by usinghis imagination to round out the picture. But he is able conscientiouslyto declare that in the substance of his narrative, as well as in everydetail which is specifically described, he has followed faithfully theaccounts of eyewitnesses, or of those who were in a position to know thetruth of what they related.
An undersized, lean, wizen-faced man, with an immense bald head, asround and smooth and shining as a giant soap-bubble, and a pair of beadyblack eyes, set close together, so that he resembled a gnome of amazingbrain capacity and prodigious power of concentration, sat bent over awriting desk with a huge sheet of cardboard before him, on which he wasswiftly drawing geometrical and trigonometrical figures. Compasses,T-squares, rulers, protractors, and ellipsographs obeyed the touch ofhis fingers as if inspired with life.
The room around him was a jungle of terrestrial and celestial