Picture Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

Via Wireless (PATHE) By Edwin Balmer (A Serial Story— Part Five) SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS. George Durant, the great gunmaker, known as "The American Krupp," is touring the Philippines in his yacht Irvessa, partly for pleasure and partly to advise in the matter of island defense. With him are his daughter Frances and his right-hand man, Etherington Pinckney, who is teaching Frances to use the yacht's "wireless." One morning Pinckney forbids Frances to use the apparatus. He also warns her against Lieutenant Sommers, who is trying to send the yacht a wireless message, telling her that Sommers is a scoundrel. As a joke, Frances talks with Sommers by wireless, but won't tell him where the Irvessa is. Pinckney lands at Bagol, and is attacked by natives. Frances refuses to go below when the yacht is fired on. She uses the wire to summon rescue. Pinckney meets a gun designer named Marsh, who claims to be the inventor of a Rheinstrum gun which Durant has contracted to buy. Pinckney promises to help him. When the yacht lands at a government post, Frances meets Sommers, and is much attracted by him. Sommers has invented a gun whose plans Pinckney studies, and declares to Durant are worthless. He also gets Marsh to agree to aid in making the test of Sommers' gun a failure. Durant, Frances, and Pinckney set out on the yacht for the Philippines again. There they receive the news over the wireless that Sommers' gun has exploded, killing three men and wounding four. "The fools !" mutters Pinckney, who takes the message. "Why weren't they careful to keep out of the way — the fools !" CHAPTER VIII— (Continued). DISASTER AND TREASON. I IMP and relaxed from the strain ' of the moment before, he fell back in his chair, and spoke hoarsely to himself. The receiving drums dropped unnoted from his ears. A light, quick step sounded upon the deck without. He straightened up with an effort and struggled back to his instruments. He controlled himself enough to face about as the door swung open and Frances entered. "Oh, what is it, Etherington?" the girl cried, in alarm, as she saw him. "What is the matter?" "Frances, I told you that gun of Sommers' was bad ! I warned you not to have it made. I told your father so, too ! You cannot say that I did not do all I could to prevent — this !" "This, Etherington? Oh, what?" "Yes, this — this which has just come in, Frances ! Here it is upon the tape ! You can read it for yourself !" He held the automatic record strip before the girl's frightened eyes. "Against all I could do, you forced the making of that gun for Sommers ; and now — see, it has exploded — exploded at the first firing, and killed three men and maimed four others!" "Oh, what " The girl caught at him in her horror. "Yes, and there is something else so serious that the admiral does not care to communicate it by wireless ! Something which demands your father's attention at once. Adrian !" — he jumped from the cabin and left the girl, stupefied and trembling, in the wireless cabin — "forced draft now to Manila. Full speed ahead ; Mr. Durant has been summoned to the flagship in the bay !" He hurried back to Frances, to find her, pale and sobbing, with her face hidden in her hands. When he spoke to her she would not hear him, but fled to her father. All day, as the throbbing turbines speeded the ship on, she sat with the old man, still pale and preoccupied. At last, late in the afternoon, the Irvessa slipped past Cavite and anchored a hundred yards distant from the California. The admiral's gig bumped against the yacht's side ; it had come to fetch Mr. Durant to the flagship. Etherington accompanied the old man over the side. During the two hours of their absence Frances paced the Irvessa's deck. At last, as the dusk dimmed into night and the lights upoii the shore and the ships began to glow, they returned. Frances met them. "What is it, father?" she cried. Her father put his arm about her sympathetically, and led her into the private saloon. Etherington followed silently. "Something very serious, indeed, my dear, I am afraid," said the old man. "And harder for you, I fear, Frances," added Etherington, in a compassionate tone, "than maybe even your father thinks. For I have seen how, in spite of our hesitation over Lieutenant Sommers, you had taken at once to trusting him. And now " "His gun exploded at the first test — I know !" Frances interrupted impatiently. "If that was his fault, it was at the worst merely a mistake — an error in his calculations. He could not know that seven men would disobey orders at such tests, and so be hurt. No one can hold that against him !" "Not that, Frances," Pinckney agreed, "but " "But what?" The young man checked himself, deferring respectfully to the girl's father. "But they must hold very seriously against him, indeed, I fear, my dear," the old man explained, "the matters with which Admiral Barlow has just acquainted us. The chief object of Lieutenant Sommers' detail down about Bagol, my dear, has been to prevent the insurgents from providing themselves with arms. This uprising has shown how utterly he failed to do his duty down there. And not only that, my dear," he continued, as his daughter raised her head quickly for defense, "but, from the circumstances of this uprising, he is now charged, not only with negligence, but with direct connivance with the chiefs to enable them to provide themselves with arms." "And you believed that of Lieutenant Sommers, father — Etherington? Admiral Barlow also believed that of him ?" "Neither of us could credit it for a moment at first, Frances," returned Pinckney. "The admiral told us that when he first heard this charge, he, too, thought it entirely absurd. But then came even a more serious charge against him — which, as it directly concerned