Picture Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

26 PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY the ship almost consciously pause and crouch ; then, as the storm fell away, she would gather herself and charge forward once more. The young man caught the handrail at his side and patted it impulsively as the ship, bearing through the very heart of the storm, swung steadily on again in her course. "Good old Mongolian!'' he muttered approvingly. Then, shaking off his preoccupation, he reseated himself at his instrument, reclamped his receivers to his ears, and, as he sat again at his watch with patiently straining ears, drew his chart to him once more. It was a chart of that great, empty expanse of the Pacific which lies more than one thousand miles west of our Hawaiian Islands and double that distance east of the Philippines. Within those thousands of miles there are, of course, many known and accurately determined sea marks. For instance, only seven hundred miles or so east and south of the position which Harling had marked on the chart, there is a chain of peaks of marine mountains, where the rocks have reached almost to the surface of the sea. Where the peaks themselves have topped the tide levels, they are islands, of course; but, even where the mountain summits have not been able quite to reach the surface, but are so close below it that they might be dangerous to ships, most of those submerged summits in that part of the Pacific have managed to become islands, anyway. For in those warm waters, ages ago, the coral builders added their product to the sunken peaks, and built them up until they had caught floating vegetation. Then land was formed, and a few savage inhabitants came. Eventually the islets were discovered, claimed, and put upon the map. But many of these peaks still lie below the surface, unknown and undetermined. If you look at the chart, you will see them recorded only as Harling read them : "Reefs reported in such and such a year," and, after most of them, the letters, "E. D." or "P. D." "Existence doubtful — position doubtful! Why?" Harling's hands clenched as he felt the storm lift the great Mongolian for an instant, and then fling her down contemptuously again. "Because 'dead men tell no tales,' " he quoted grimly. "Sp these" — he touched his chart — "are only the reefs which those who found them have escaped. But what of the uncharted reefs ?" His hands clenched again, and his muscles tightened spontaneously. At the subconscious alarm, instinctively he raised himself in his seat and strained his eyes, staring out into the lightningriven pall ahead. Still faint and imperceptible almost, but distinct enough now to call consciously to the operator, the tapper within the receptor before him quivered and trembled. A quiver again, and then once more the trembling tap sounded from the resonator. Now, stronger and more audible, as the Mongolian pushed her way farther within the range of the other's communication, the tapper rattled again. A long, trembling tap ; a quick, nervous rasp ; a tremble again ; then the rap, and again the quiver. Harling swept his chart aside and waited, alert, cool, collected. His hand, which had shot forward impulsively to his key, sustained the steady fingers over it patiently. The discipline of habit was so strong that, when it had again taken command, it mastered automatically the impulse which had first come to him, hearing the call that came trembling to him through the storm. Again the tapper rattled ; and in the same trembling panic the call clattered out once more. "The call in the Continental code !" Harling muttered. "And — lightning doesn't throw off the message that way. That's lost nerve!" The terrible suspense and exaltation of one who holds a telegram unopened came to Harling, magnified a thousandfold. Somewhere in that black, broken, hurricane-tossed wash of the ocean before him, a ship was trembling out its chattering call through the storm, and the man who was sending was in fear. Harling lifted his head. "There's no one answering," he exulted. "I guess it's ours !" He pressed his key down firmly ; and with a hissing crash the great, blue, twelve-inch spark leaped across the gap. From the humming ninety-foot aerials overhead, the electric waves spread steadily out against the storm. With quick, rattling volleys of discharges from the high-powered current, "Mongolian !" he signaled. "Position about 176 west, 1445 north. East bound." "Ra-attle, rap, ra-a-attle, rap, ra-attle !" The call was still trembling in the Mongolian's resonators. The lip of the operator curkd. "Why doesn't he stop sending, to receive?" he demanded of himself, angry in his impatience. "Mongolian, 176 west, 14.45 north. East bound !" The current from Harling's coil crackled again. "What do you want?" "Mongolian!" He found himself writing his transcription as the receptor clattered. "Mongolian!" The man at the other end was repeating the word senselessly. "Yacht Irvcssa going to pieces on reef. Help us ! Must have aid at once. Help us! Help us!" The sounder clattered feverishly. "Come to us. We cannot last." Harling pressed his lips tight in his disgust as the message chattered on. The young operator's tense muscles snapped down upon his key. "Ash-cra-ash !" His coils roared their imperative interruption. "Ash-ash-ashash-ash !" they exploded rapidly. "Craash ! What reef ? What is your position ?" "Help us for " Harling snapped his pencil over the words, and sprang upon his key again. "Cra-a-ash ! Where are you ?" he demanded. He stopped again to listen. But not for a second, in the panic of his sending, had the other man held his current to receive. "What is your position? What reef are you upon?" Harling volleyed back madly in his impotency. "Irvcssa! Send your position at once!" "Two hours ago — have thirty on board " "The fool!" Harling cried helplessly into the storm. "Call-call-call-call-call." He read the dots and dashes on his tape contemptuously from the beginning. "Mongolian — Mongolian. Yacht Irvcssa going to pieces on reef. Help us ! Must have aid at once. Come to us ! We cannot last " There was the break where Harling himself had been sending, but "Help us !"' — the whine was repeated again. "Are going to pieces — are going to pieces — cannot last half hour — breaking up — thirty aboard. I am Pinckney — E. H. Pinckney, for George Durant, owner. Will surely reward you " Again, as Harling swore softly to himself, the roar of the Mongolian's great spark silenced the resonator ; and