Part 4 (1/2)
Sensitizing the detector, he slid up the tuning handle for high waves.
Static, far removed, trickled in. Then a faint, musical wailing like a violin's E-string pierced this. The violin was the government station at Arlington, Virginia, transmitting a storm warning to s.h.i.+ps in the South Atlantic. For five minutes the wailing persisted. Sliding the tuning handle downward, Peter listened for commercial wave-lengths.
A harsh grinding, unmusical as emery upon hollow bronze, rasped stutteringly in the head phones. Laboriously, falteringly, the grating was cleaved into clumsy dots and dashes of the Continental Code, under the quaking fingers of some obviously frightened and inexperienced operator. Were these the sounds which had unnerved Dale? For a time the raspings spelled nothing intelligible. The unknown sender evidently was repeating the same word again and again. It held four letters. Once they formed, H-I-J-X. Another time, S-E-L-J. And another, L-P-H-E.
The painstaking intent, as the operator's acute ears recognized, was identical in each instance. Frequently the word was incoherent altogether, the signals meaning nothing.
Suddenly Peter jerked up his head. Out of the jumble stood the word, as an unseen s.h.i.+p will often stand out nakedly in a fog rift. Over and over, badly s.p.a.ced, the infernal rasp was spelling, _H-E-L-P_.
He waited for the signature of this frantic operator. But none occurred. Following a final letter ”p” the signals ceased.
For a minute or two, while Peter nervously pondered, the air was silent. Then another station called him. A loud droning purr filled the receivers. Peter gave the ”k” signal. The brisk voice of the transport _Rover_ droned:
”I can't raise KPH. Will you handle an M-S-G for me?”
”Sure!” roared the _Vandalia's_ spark. ”But wait a minute. Have you heard a broken down auxiliary asking for help? He's been jamming me for fifteen minutes. Seems to be very close, K.”
”Nix,” replied the _Rover_ breezily. ”Can't be at all close or I would hear him, too. I can see your lights from my window. You're off our port quarter. Here's the M-S-G.”
Peter accepted the message, retransmitting it to the KPH operator, then called the wheelhouse on the telephone. Quine, first officer, answered sleepily.
”Has the lookout reported any s.h.i.+p in the past hour excepting the _Rover_?”
”Is that the _Rover_ on our port quarter?” Quine's voice was gruffly amazed. Like most mariners of the old school, he considered the wireless machine a nuisance. Yet its intelligence occasionally caught him off guard.
”Only thing in sight, Sparks.”
Peter made an entry in the log-book, folded his hands and shut his eyes. The Leyden jars rattled in their mahogany sockets as the _Vandalia_ climbed a wave, faltered, and sped into the hollow. Far removed from her pivot of gravity, the wireless house behaved after the manner of an express elevator. But the wireless house chair was bolted to the floor.
Wrinkles of perplexity creased his forehead. Had this stuttering static anything in kind with those other formless events? If not, what terrified creature was invoking his aid in this blundering fas.h.i.+on?
A simple test would prove if the signals were of local origin--from a miniature apparatus aboard the s.h.i.+p. He hoped anxiously for the opportunity. And in less than a half hour the opportunity was given him.
A tarred line sc.r.a.ped the white belly of the life-boat which swelled up from the deck outside the door, giving forth a dull, crunching sound with each convulsion of the engines. The square area above it danced with reeling stars, moiled by a purple-black heaven.
Peter, who had been studying the tarred rope, swung about in the chair and dropped an agitated finger to the silvered wire which rested against the glittering detector crystal. A tiny, blue-red flame snapped from his finger to the crystal chip! The frantic operator was aboard the _Vandalia_!
The broken stridulations took on the coherence of intelligible dots and dashes. The former blundering was absent, as if the tremulous hand of the sender was steadied by the grip of a dominant necessity; the signals clarified by the pressure of terror.
”_Do not try to find me_,” it stammered and halted.
Some maddened pulse seemed to leap to life in Peter's throat. His fingers, working at the base of the tiny instrument, were cold and damp.
”_You must wait_,” rasped the unknown sender, faltering. ”_You must help me_! _You are watched._”
For a breath there was no sound in the receivers other than the beating of his heart.
_Click_! _Snap_! _Sputter_! Then: ”_Wait for the lights of China_!”
The receivers rattled to the red blotter, and Peter rushed out on deck.
Slamming the door, he stared at the spurting streams of white in the racing water. Indescribably feminine was the fumbling touch of that unknown sender!