Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/85

 and looked into. And that would mean trouble with the company when I got back."

"Then when you get your 'go-ahead' signal why couldn't you just lay low and complain that your receiver or coherer, or something, was out of order—that you were cut off from receiving?"

"I hate to lie about my machinery," retorted the operator with what seemed a blind and foolish pride in his tools.

The older man's curl of lip showed a slowly mounting dislike for further argument. Then he lifted his wide shoulders with a movement of resignation.

"Of course, I don't want you to lose either your job or your self-respect just because my official duty's been making me shadow a man."

The wireless operator seemed groping about for an answer when the quietness of the ship was broken by a sudden sound. It was the Laminian's foghorn, hoarse and mournful through the darkness, tearing the quiet with its slowly repeated call. The two men stood side by side, listening, as the bass-noted complaint was repeated.

"We're running into thick weather," said the operator, turning to take up his earphones. The two men, immured in their own ends and aims, had lost all thought of time and environment.