Page:Amazing Stories Volume 01 Number 04.djvu/6

294 me to say if I would also have done my duty then, but this I know, I would not have been able to finish that game of bowls. It's all a question of nerves. As to the other matter, I knew you would not understand. You are a town girl, and I am from the lonely glen. There are some things that are only to be felt. The forest, the stream, the rocks and the mountain, can teach something to a child that cannot be learned later. It's a sort of sixth sense. Some of us have it. I don't claim to, myself, yet I feel the approach of a cloud. As a boy I loved to wander alone, listen to the roaring torrent, climb the steep precipices of the mountain-side, and often when up at cloud level, I have watched a great fleecy mass approaching, slowly while in the distance, but seemingly faster and faster as it came near. Then suddenly it would swallow me up. Well, dearest May, there is a cloud approaching now that is destined to swallow me up; no light and fleecy mass, but dark and terrible, full of lightnings and of danger, and I do not see myself liberated from its embrace."

LAN, dear, do not keep anything from me. If you know anything dangerous connected with your new post, tell it to me. You say you value this opportunity because it brings a certain day nearer. As you are going away, I'll confess that it is for the same reason I too value it. When your position is established, we can be so happy together. At present, as you know, I am anything but that. Yet, I would far rather you threw it all up if there is any special danger."

"If there is, I know nothing about it," he replied, with a smile. "Unfortunately, you discovered my mood, and made me tell you of this impression, which really rests on nothing. But," he added hastily, "let's talk of other things."

May sighed as she recognized it would be useless to say more on the subject. She knew Macrae's highly-strung nervous temperament, but also that in all circumstances he would be sure to do his duty. She could not understand his forebodings; but recognizing that the moment of parting was drawing near, she allowed the subject to drop.

Alan Macrae had been a poor, half-starved youth from the Highlands, who had by mere chance been engaged in an unskilled capacity at the Marconi station of wireless telephony that the Government had established on the north-east coast of Scotland. He had shown such willingness, industry and interest in the working of the station, that opportunity had been-given him to acquire further knowledge of it. The advantage he took of this was so satisfactory that he had been given every encouragement and chance to perfect himself. After some years, he had became one of the most competent wireless electricians on Marconi's staff, A chance discovery had then caused his transference to Poldhu in Cornwall.

When radio telephony was in its infancy it was no easy matter to catch the words, and acute hearing was absolutely necessary to the operator. To a certain extent it still is, for there is always a zone surrounding any station, near the limit of audibility, where acuteness of hearing makes all the difference the possibility and impossibility of com- tion. It was found that Macrae's endowment in this respect was little short of phenomenal, and this it was that caused him to be sent to the Cornish station used for transatlantic messages. Later it had been one of the reasons, combined with his steadiness and competence, that had caused him to be selected for this mysterious Government appointment.

When the moment approached for going on board the cruiser that was to transport him to his unknown destination, May Treherne, principally for the sake of filling some of the unoccupied time that she feared would hang heavily on his hands, asked him to keep a diary, so that she might at some future time have the pleasure of reading it. This he promised to do, and after a tender parting he strode rapidly off in the direction of where the cruiser's boat was awaiting him.

HAT night he reported himself to Captain Evered of H.M.S. Sagitta, where he made the acquaintance of Lieutenant Wilson, who would be in command of Station X, to which Macrae was going. Knowing how much they would be thrown together, Captain Evered was anxious that these two should make a mutually favorable impression upon each other; but his instinct told him from the first that such was far from being the case. Wilson, in speaking to his brother officers that night, made no secret of his dismay.

"This is rough luck," said he, "to be boxed up for six months with that miserable mechanic!"

For his part, Macrae said nothing, but felt instinctively the complete lack of sympathy between him and his future superior. It was only after making Lieutenant Wilson's acquaintance that he realized the isolation of the past to which he was going. He felt no resentment against Wilson for what he recognized was a mutual misfortune—that they could never be companions, and he saw that one of the chief reasons was his own lack of education.

Captain Evered found an early opportunity of taking Wilson to task, and of giving him some sound advice, pointing out the bearings of the thing from the Government's point of view, the responsibility of his post, and the desirability of cultivating good relations with his companion who had had less advantages than himself, etc., etc. He nevertheless came to the conclusion, long before the voyage was over, that they were as ill-assorted a pair as he had ever seen.

The voyage was uneventful. In the Indian Ocean, they picked up from another cruiser, a Hong-Kong Chinaman, a quiet methodical sort of creature, who had been engaged to act as servant at the station.

The otherwise nameless islet, known to the admiralty as Station X, was made on the morning of September 7. A short time sufficed for the landing of the new staff and stores, and the taking on board of those relieved. Before the new trio had realized the strangeness of their position, the Sagitta, that greyhound of the waters, had disappeared below the horizon. One of the first things, however, that Lieutenant Wilson did realize after taking command was that Macrae, whatever his social shortcomings, was a most intelligent and thoroughly competent "wireless" engineer and operator.