Picture Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

28 PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY bad that you can't stay over for the test of your gun, particularly as it is now extremely improbable that either Mr. Pinckney or myself will be in the country at that time. But I shall have word sent to me of the result at the earliest possible moment and shall send it on to you immediately. The motor is waiting for us, I believe, at the door." "Thank you, sir." The officer sprang up quickly. "Miss Durant — I shall force the fighting at Bagol to a finish in time to meet you in Manila ! Goodby !" CHAPTER VIII. DISASTER AND TREASON. "Dash — dot — dash — dot — dash !" Etherington Pinckney was again alone in the wireless cabin of the Irvessa. Again the yacht was drawing near the land in the early morning. But this time it was approaching Manila and had come around the north end of long Luzon. He was volleying out the general call in the continental code, over the sea, to the still distant shore. "Call! Call! Call!" The flashes and great, leaping sparks of the hissing blue current flared luridly in the gray light just before the dawn. He repeated the call again. "Manila!" he addressed directly. "Manila !" The yacht had been but twenty-two days out, this time ; for the swift turbines had not stopped to rest during the voyage, either at Honolulu or at Guam. Early on the previous afternoon Adrian had swung the little Irvessa's bow about to the southward. They had turned the northern point of Luzon, and since then had been skirting the shore, almost due south. By midnight the light upon Cape Bolinao told them that they were passing the mouth of Lingayen Gulf, and that the next one hundred and fifty miles would put them through the Boca Grande again into Manila Bay. The direct route to Manila is far from the paths of steamers for Japan and China ; so, for over two weeks they had been steering a lonely course. Neither ship nor land station had responded to their farthest-flung wireless call for fourteen days. The last response, caught when they were below the Midway Islands, was from a vessel having no fresh news of govern ment gun tests or other developments in the United States. For fourteen days, therefore, Mr. Durant, Frances, and Etherington Pinckney had possessed their souls in patience, but now, as some ship or land station must surely strike communication, Etherington, at least, was sleeping less soundly. Before six o'clock he had joined Adrian upon the bridge, watching for the first headlands in the breaking light. The skipper pointed out the clearing lines of Zambales to him. They were within communication radius of Manila. Pinckney vanished. "A-a-ash — ash !" Adrian heard the long and short intervals of the call rasping out from the wireless room in the early-morning silence. They continued for a while in the commercial call ; then stopped. When they began again, the skipper noted that the call had been changed. "A-ash — a-ash ! A-A !" Pinckney was now spreading the call in the navy code across the intervening arm of Manila Bay, to catch the government ships about the still distant city. "What's the matter?" he swore softly to himself, in his impatience. "Are all the tin soldiers and sailors still asleep?" He rasped out his call again. "Ah ! One of 'em's awake." He strained his ears to his receptors, as a far-away answer tapped back. "It's a cruiser — the California!" he muttered, as he made out the acknowledgment. "I see. Admiral Barlow's flagship in Manila Bay. Now, exactly what had I better say to him ? "Mr. George Durant, yacht Irvessa, approaching Manila." he spelled rapidly, "requests relay any message for him." "This is U. S. S. California," the answer repeated patiently. "Not commercial station ; have no message for you." Pinckney put his hand to his key, drew it back irresolutely, and drummed his fingers upon the table. "California'' he called, "will you try, for Mr. Durant, to rouse " He stopped suddenly. In the intervals of his sending he made out that the cruiser, or some other station, was cutting in upon him. "Irvessa!" He made out the cruiser's call, more alertly and respectfully. "Admiral Barlow, learning Mr. Durant in communication, presents his compl ments." "So the admiral's about, is he: Etherington considered a moment wit himself. "Well, he'll know about th test one way or the other, if any on does. So here goes!" "Return Mr. Durant's compliments t Admiral Barlow," he sent rapidly. "Re quest any news from the States." "Admiral Barlow requests Mr. Du rant reserve first possible hour upo: reaching Manila for conference wit him." "Acknowledge. What news for Mi Durant? Please send. Particularly have you heard result tests Sommer gun?" he snapped out. "News for Mr. Durant which canno communicate, requiring conference.' came the answer. "Concerning Som mers gun," the reply continued, witr stupid, stumbling, slowness, "gun failec in first test !" Pinckney uttered an ex clamation of triumph. "Exploding," the tapper rapped on' "killed three men and maimed four." The blood boiling through Pinckney': veins stopped with a shock. TO BE CONTINUED. Logic in the Studio. A HIGH-SCHOOL youth with tall *» views about the universe, started in as an extra man with one of the big motion-picture companies recently. He was talking with a scene painter, and endeavoring to point out to the latter the truth of the lofty assertion he had just made that "it takes a man with an education to get along nowadays." Drawing a circle on the floor with a piece of charcoal, the young man said : "Now, if this was a circle of grass, and there was a golf ball lost in it, you or any other uneducated man would go into it and walk all around, doubling on your tracks, and wasting time in looking for the ball ; while the educated man would simply begin at the outskirts of the circle, walking round and round in a narrower circle each time, until he picked up the ball without having gone over the same ground twice." "Kid." snorted the scene painter, "go back to school and learn some common sense. The way to find that ball would be to set fire to the grass and hit for the place where you smelled the rubber burning !"