tor crystal. A tiny, blue-red flame
snapped from his finger to the crystal chip! The frantic operator was
aboard the _Vandalia_!

The broken stridulations took on the coherence of intelligible dots and
dashes. The former blundering was absent, as if the tremulous hand of
the sender was steadied by the grip of a dominant necessity; the
signals clarified by the pressure of terror.

"_Do not try to find me_," it stammered and halted.

Some maddened pulse seemed to leap to life in Peter's throat. His
fingers, working at the base of the tiny instrument, were cold and damp.

"_You must wait_," rasped the unknown sender, faltering. "_You must
help me_! _You are watched._"

For a breath there was no sound in the receivers other than the beating
of his heart.

_Click_! _Snap_! _Sputter_! Then: "_Wait for the lights of China_!"

The receivers rattled to the red blotter, and Peter rushed out on deck.
Slamming the door, he stared at the spurting streams of white in the
racing water. Indescribably feminine was the fumbling touch of that
unknown sender!

A grating--hollow, metallic--occurred in the lee of the wireless cabin.
A footfall sounded, coincident with the heavy collision into his side
of an unwieldy figure whose hands, greasy and hot, groped over his.
Both grunted.

"'Sthat you, Sparks?" They were the German gutturals of Luffberg, one
of the oilers on the twelve-to-six watch. "Been fixin' the ventilator.
Chief wondered if you were up. Wants to know why you ain't been down
to say hello."

Peter decided to lay a portion of his difficulties before Minion.

CHAPTER VI

The first operator had developed for himself at an early stage of his
occupancy of the _Vandalia's_ wireless house the warm friendship of the
chief engineer. A wireless man is far more dependent for his peace of
mind upon the engine-room crew than upon the forward crew. The latter
has only one interest in him: that he stick to his instruments; while
the engine-room crew strictly is the source from which his blessings
flow, his blessings taking the invisible, vital form of electric
current.

Wireless machines are gourmands of electricity. They are wastrels.
Not one-tenth of the energy sucked from the ship's power wires finds
its way through the maze of coils and jars to the antennae between the
mastheads.

The _Vandalia's_ engine-room equipment was installed long before
wireless telegraphy was a maritime need and a governmen