We have only the trouble of taking them! Therefore we filled all his pockets--covered him with millions!" "Of what use are these millions to him if he is not allowed to enjoy them outside ?" "That, Mr.Hart, is a matter that does not trouble him a little bit! This man of genius thinks nothing of the future: he lives but in the present.

While engines are being constructed from his plans over yonder in America, he is preparing his explosive with chemical substances with which he has been abundantly supplied.

He! he! What an invention it is, this autopropulsive engine, which flies through the air of its own power and accelerates its speed till the goal is reached, thanks to the properties of a certain powder of progressive combustion! Here we have an invention that will bring about a radical change in the art of war." "Defensive war, Mr.Serko." "And offensive war, Mr.Hart." "Naturally," I answer.
Then pumping him still more closely, I go on: "So, what no one else has been able to obtain from Thomas Roch--" "We obtained without much difficulty." "By paying him." "By paying him an incredible price--and, moreover, by causing to vibrate what in him is a very sensitive chord." "What chord ?" "That of vengeance!" "Vengeance ?--against whom ?" "Against all those who have made themselves his enemies by discouraging him, by spurning him, expelling him, by constraining him to go a-begging from country to country with an invention of incontestable superiority! Now all notion of patriotism is extinct in his soul.

He has now but one thought, one ferocious desire: to avenge himself upon those who have denied him--and even upon all mankind! Really, Mr.Hart, your governments of Europe and America committed a stupendous blunder in refusing to pay Roch the price his fulgurator is worth!" And Engineer Serko describes enthusiastically the various advantages of the new explosive which, he says, is incontestably superior to any yet invented.
"And what a destructive effect it has," he adds.

"It is analogous to that of the Zalinski shell, but is a hundred times more powerful, and requires no machine for firing it, as it flies through the air on its own wings, so to speak." I listen in the hope that Engineer Serko will give away a part of the secret, but in vain.