Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/60

 and loud. I wondered. While I am not the seventh son of a son-of-a-gun nor do I claim any supernatural powers I got the hunch that down here in tropic waters where insurrections are the rule and not the exception all was not as it should be.

I told the Captain about it and while he didn’t take much stock in the idea he had a search made of the ship. One of the room stewards reported that he had found an electric cord with a plug end hanging from a lamp socket in room 138. It might have been for an electric iron, for a hot-water heater or any one of a dozen other electric appliances, he said, but it looked suspicious.

A more thorough search of room 138, in which the Captain and I took part, revealed a heavy suit case under the bunk, which had a place to plug in the cord, another for the receivers, and a key—at least this was my theory. A strict watch was kept on the stateroom and I went back and sent GA, which was the call for “Alvarada” every few minutes.

In the course of fifteen minutes or so I got the OK of the operator at GA. The steward who had entered the stateroom adjoining the