Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/240

, caught up his key, and sent the answer ing call rattling and exploding across his spark-gap, loud above the purr of the wakened dynamo.

Then he turned again to his phones and listened. They had not tuned up to him; they had not picked him up. For still again came the call "Pt-Ba," "Pt-Ba." It was out of the hours for sending. The engine-room had diminished his power, leaving him without voltage enough to make a "splash" that would reach the war-ship.

But his hand went out to his form-pad and he bent over it, busy with his transcription, as the noise pulsing and creeping in through his receivers translated itself into intelligibility.

Then came a minute or two of silence, and then the call again, followed by the repeated message: