Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/43

 with the will of a sentient and reasoning being.

The stranger looked about quickly, as the thick-necked, short-legged captain, in dripping oilskins, leaned over the port bridge-gate and called back along the empty deck:

"You, there!—are you gettin anything?"

There was no answer to his call.

"Aren't you gettin' that ship out there?" he demanded peremptorily, as he flung the raindrops from his cap-brim with a bull-like shake of the head.

He leaned on the wet rail and waited. But still there was no answer to his question. So he repeated it, this time in a bellow. Then came the sound of a chair being pushed back on deck-boards in the wireless-room, and the rattle of a quickly opened shutter.

"I'll have her in five minutes," answered the operator. The shutter closed again, sharply. Captain Yandel, the master of the Laminian, mumbled under his breath, and turned back to the bridge.

The man in the raincoat swung casually about on his heel and studied the operator's station, where the after-deck superstructure rose squat and square as a scow-cabin out of the bleached flooring of the weather-deck. He peered up to where the "T" aerials of phosphor-bronze wire on their ashwood stretchers bridged the two