Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/121

 —they are afraid of. This ship will be the only one in the roadstead."

She watched his face with almost a touch of impatience. She looked for some glance or gesture of enlightenment on his part. But he gave no sign of comprehension; so she was forced to go on, explicitly, like a tutor slowly demonstrating the obvious to a perversely backward pupil.

"You are equipped with wireless. That means you will be able to talk with Guariqui. If Duran and my brother are shut up there, calling for help, you will be the only person to hear their messages. Can't you understand? The Guariqui station is not one of high power. It can't possibly call beyond the coast. Yet the cruiser is to be lying somewhere between Culebra and Locombia, waiting to help, only too anxious to interfere at the first official call. But that call can never reach them without being relayed from the roadstead, out across the Caribbean. You may be the only person who can hear and understand Guariqui's cry for help."