In the city full of commotion and beset with despair, there was a little island against which live waves dashed themselves to pieces. Here, day and night, in fire and heat of the melting furnaces, and amid the clank and din of machines, thousands of people worked, like the children of Vulcan in the blacksmith shops of hell. The world could rage with madness, as it saw fit, but here they forged implements for the struggle for its existence, while there still was a drop of hope left.

At the time of Deriugin’s arrival, three powerful engines were completed, while another five were still in work. Every day, from early morning, leaving behind him the filthy and narrow streets of the noisy city, the engineer would enter the smoky kingdom of iron and steel, whence it was destined to launch at the needed moment the iron giants, wherever the enemy was expected.

It was here that young Flinder had found him, after an untiring chase. Deriugin was in the yard of the gigantic plant which produced yesterday a new electromagnet which was to be tested this day. At first the engines were tested. The groaning of their oppressive weights shook up the machines with a heavy tremor, so that the earth began to shake under them. Several mechanics, together with Deriugin, walked around the iron monsters, observing their rhythm, breath and the workings of each and every part of them.

The chief engineer, a tall, slim Italian, pointed out some inaccuracies in the refrigerator; a group of mechanics stopped to watch a tiny stream of gas that had been leaking out from somewhere.

Deriugin stepped aside, writing something into his notebook, when suddenly, in the rear of the dark passageway of the interior building, appeared the figure of a man who stopped bewildered in the center of the yard, apparently stunned by the clanking and noise that filled the air from all sides. The visitor’s face seemed familiar to Deriugin, but, for the moment, he could not recollect where he had met these restlessly seeking eyes, the protuberant forehead and hard-compressed lips.

Something strange, impetuous and alarming was in the stranger’s pose, and Deriugin was about to inquire how and wherefore he had come here, when their eyes suddenly met. Within a trice, Deriugin’s memory conjured up the forgotten image for him, and within the same trice the intruder’s eyes became inflamed with such rabid hatred, that the engineer unwillingly retreated. Eitel’s right hand dropped into his pocket and within a twinkle of an eye, Deriugin saw before himself the dark gap of the pistol’s bore.