Page:Waylaid by Wireless - Balmer - 1909.djvu/348

Rh "And listen a bit!" The Englishman halted the girl a moment later as they came under the "wireless" operating-room, and the faint "plu-u-ush" of the hissing current became just audible. "Our operator is back; the St. Petersburg must have been relaying some message out to us. That which we just heard was our acknowledgment—'wireless' for 'thank you.

"I hope that it is not our message which is causing that trouble down the deck there," the girl said, wondering at her flutter of apprehension as she observed the commotion. "See! There is the captain and the second officer again—and the purser. And—whom are they stopping?"

"I say!" the Englishman cried, aroused to interest, "but they seem to have Mr. Preston again! But I say, they weren't to do that, unless we caught him at the pools, till New York!"

"Perhaps," the girl felt herself weaken queerly, "they caught him with the pool!"

320