It was just as he finished reading this extract that the shrill
fluttering call of the maxy bird was heard from the bare branches of a
poplar near the station, and in the next instant, in that intense quiet
that succeeds sometimes a sudden unexpected and acute accent, the Morse
register was audible above us, clicking with a continuity and evident
_intention_ that, weighted as we were with vague sensational hopes, drew
the blood from our faces, and seemed almost like a voice from the red
orb then glowing in the southeastern sky. We sprang together up the
stairs to the operating-room and saw with our eyes the moving lever of
the little Morse machine. We had made ourselves familiar with the
ordinary telegraphic codes, the international Telegraphic Code and that
in use in Canada and the United States. They were useless. The
succession of short or long intervals was entirely different and the
message, if message it was, defied our persistent efforts at
translation. The disturbance of the register continued some three hours,
and though we were unmistakably in communication with some external
regulated and _intentional_ source of magnetic impulses we were
hopelessly confused as to their meaning.

I can never forget our excitement. We were certainly the recipient of
exact careful conscious messages. Their terrestrial origin, strange and
incredible as it might appear, did not seem likely, for the two codes so
generally in use were not represented in it. Could it be--the thought
seemed to stop the beating of our hearts--could it be that we had indeed
received an extra-terrestrial communication? The register of the dots
and dashes cannot be all reproduced here, though a very long record of
them, indeed almost complete, was made by myself. During the whole time
that the register moved hardly a word of conversation escaped our lips.
We were fixed in mute amazement. We were full of unexpressed imaginings,
which were told, however in my father's face, so flushed with eagerness,