Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/58

 muffling his earphones. Then he suddenly swung about and looked at the man behind him.

"That cruiser's going to Culebra, off Porto Rico. She's ordered south on account of the Locombian trouble."

"You don't mean she's going to mix up in that mess?" the intruder cried with a note of disgust.

"No; Atlantic City says she's just going to lie there and wait for instructions from Washington."

The operator turned back to his table without apparently noticing the interest in the other man's eyes. He sat seemingly detached and unconscious of any presence in the room except that of the mysterious spirit which came and went at a touch of his hand. A smile began to play about his mouth as he listened. It was held there in suspension, while his gaze shifted from side to side, vivaciously, in response to that far-off and mysterious voice that was winging its invisible way across so many miles of rain-washed sea and emptiness, to creep along a slender thread of metal into his closed and crowded cabin.

He still seemed unconscious of the mounting look of determination, of obdurate belligerency, that smouldered up into the square-jawed face of the watching stranger as his eyes travelled