A door, blocking the tunnel just ahead, had slid open and the
light was pouring out of a room beyond.
"What happened?" Arv gasped.
Tom pointed downward to a pedallike plunger inserted in the tunnel
floor. "This must be a switch," he explained. "When I stepped on it
accidentally, it must have opened the door and flashed on the lights."
Bud whistled. "Wow! Let's be thankful it wasn't a booby trap!"
"Maybe it is," murmured Hank grimly.
Steeling their nerves, and with every sense alert, the searchers
advanced into the secret room.
Tom suddenly gave a cry of amazement. "The earthquake machine!"
A huge hydraulic device, with massive steel bed and supporting pillars,
looking somewhat like the enormous body presses found in automobile
plants, stood embedded in a recess in one wall.
Tom rushed to the machine and examined it in fascination. A powerful
diesel generator stood nearby with banks of complicated electrical
equipment, amid a spider-web tangle of wiring. Tom assumed this gear was
for timing and synchronizing the shock waves. Evidently the whole setup
was operated from a single control panel in the wall, studded with knobs
and dials.
"What a job of design!" Tom exclaimed in awe. His eyes roved over every
detail of the equipment while he poked here and there with his hands. He
was getting the "feel" of the setup almost as much by touch and handling
as by his superb technical intuition.
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