"THE WEB."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8876, 9 November 1907, Page 2

"THE WEB."

CHAPTER XXl.—Continued. "That you might get Violet for a trip on her," laughed Alice. "Then the best thing you can do i& to steam after Mr Theodore Beeton and claim one of his passengers from him." "And put my passenger on board the Alice in exchange. Well, J think that's about as sensible a suggestion as either of us has made for a very long time. I'll wire at once." • CHAPTER XXII. Hard by where England peters out to the Atlantic in long, low-lying grey cliffs, Henry Marsham sat in the operating-room of the Anglo-Ameri-can Wireless Telegraphy Company. Outside a heeray fret blotted out all trace of the division between sea and land. The density of the fog rendered the darkness of the night al\ the more impenetrable. Outside nothing could be seen but the wall of vapour. Only the dull roar that, reached his ears told him of the storm that was raging on, the sea. He had lit the fire in the stove on taking over the duties for the evening from the last operator, for the wind had more east in it than was pleasant, and the night was damp and chilly. With his pipe in his mouth and his slippered feet on the stove top, Marsham was waiting for the dawn and six o'clock.

It was after 1 a.m. already, and he yawned dismaby. The operatingroom was not a particularly cheerful place at any time,/ but on such a night, Marsham told himself, it was more than ordinarily intolerable. The rythmical ticking of the clock, the distant fury of the waves, the drowsy crackling of the burning coal, these were the only sounds that disturbed the silence of his surroundings. He would liked to have dropped asleep, but his sense of duty bade him struggle successfully against his physical weariness. He smoked furiously to dispel the siren charms of slumber while his mind was busy with thoughts of Esther Elders. Of the seven ships that had been sooken during the last shift one was the Alice, Beeton's yacht, the magnificent vessel that carried his,heart's desire. ItJ was just his luck, he told himself, to be on night duty while the yacht was still in wireless connection with the home station. If only he had been working during the daytime, he;might have communicated with it, but there was no use thinking of it now. JtJy this time Esther would be' sleeping soundly. When, he his thoughts taking a different direction, would they have enough money to marry? It was all very well for her people to refuse to countenance their union until he had £SOO a year at the very last. It seemed to him that they might just as well have issued an ultimatum to the effect that Henry Marsham, bachelor, should never lead Esther Elders, spinster, to the altar. From where was he to get the £SOO a year from? Without some unparalleled stroke of good fortune, he saw nothing before him in his present employ beyond a possible £4OO. It'was too bad. He was sure they could be happy on almost nothing, though Esther did say that she had no objection to love in a cottage,, so long as the cottage was handsomely appointed, and the presiding goddess of the humble abode had plenty to eat and enough clothes to create the esential amount of envy in the minds of other members of her sex. He knew, however, that this Was only Esther's way of talking. She liked to smile ; her troubles away on the principle that the sun dispels a shower. She could not disobey the wish of her mother, and so she invented frivolous excuses for not complying with Marsham's oft-ex-pressed argument in favour of % a ppecial license* or a registry office, or some other equivalent of the old Gretna Green way out of a lover's difficulty.

His brow puckered with a sort of gavage despair as he thought over the obstacles which fate had interposed between him and his happiness. Involuntarily, there came into his mind a verse from Esther's favourite ballad, "Oh, Waly, Waly, up the Bank." He repeated the words in an undertone to himself— Gin I had wist before I kissed, That love had been so ill to win, I had locked my heart, in a case of gold And pinned it wi' a silver pin. Ha knocked the ashes savagely out of his pipe against the stove, and was beginning to re-charge the well-charred bowl when his ear caught the sound of the instrument at work. He dropped his pouch and pipe on the floor and strode across to the tape. One glance at it, and his face suddenly became tense with excitement. Some ship, far away out on tha vast desert of the sea, was in danger. Click, click, click, went the machine, repeating again and again as if despairingly the distress calls of thi Universal Code. Then, from out of t.. i unknown, there came a message, tiic very first words of which blanched the cheeks of Henry Marsham and made the sweat statid out in agony upoi] his brow. "S.S. Alice." His heart seemed to stand still, as without looking at the machine hki trained ear picked out the forbodingmessage. "S.S. Alice—Southampton—New York. Three days out. Ship scuttled by explosion Wark of two men. Escaped in only undamaged boat. Hull badly dan aged. Water gaining rapidly. Cannot keep afloat longer than twelve hours." » And Esther was on board Esther —the girl he loved—the girl for whom he alone worked and hoped—the girl without home life would be a

PAUL URQUHART.

[Publishedi3By'!2 Special A iuungement.] [All Eights Reseuved.]

hell and existence merely a prolonged torture. In tweive hours, far awo 3 out 011 the bosom of the Atlantic, Che cvuei sea would swallow up all that w;ii worth living for. What could lie do? There war, no hope of saving them. No chance of rescuing them from the deep. No chance unless He turned desperately to the transmission machine. There was no need to look up the call signal of the Alice. He knew it well. Again and again he pressed the key, making the letters 0. B. B. A reply came at last. He began to put questions, calmer now, and with every nerve stretched to face that which was before him.

"According to last reckoning about longitude 21, latitude 46 30," the machine answered in response to his query. "Where are you?" Before him on the wall hung the sheet on which were entered the ships spoken during the last twentyfour hours. He scanned it eagerly to find out the whereabouts of the nearest vessel.

"H.M.S. Good Hdpe, too near home. H.M.S. Caesar, steaming in company with her the Lucania, not wichin call; the St. Paul, already safely berthed at Southampton; Oceanic, within two hours of Liverpool; the Deutscblandjout of call like the Lucania; the White Kose, private yacht." He stopped when he came to this last vessel.

She was somewhere in the neighbourhood. She had been spoken the night before, he recollected, and was now morq than two days out from Southampton.

Turning swiftly to the maritime register, he picked out the code and signal of the White Rose. He pressed the transmission key savagely until once more he was in communication with the sinking ship. "Am getting in touch with S.Y. White Rose. Must be hear you." Back came the reply: '"What is her code signal. Will get in touch ourselves."

"E.E.P.," he signalled, and then his own trouble coming up into his mind, he went on, "'Give this message to Miss Elders from Henry Marsham,. Tell her White Rose will take you all off in time, and give her my love.i I am now going to try and get the White Rose."

| "E.E.P.," he tapped out, launching the signal into space.

His fingers moved mechanically, forming the dots and dashes of the code while his brain worked tempestuously. '

Science enabled him to annihilate space, to speak a ship several hundred miles away but there science stopped. It could not bring him over those leagues of water to the side of the girl he loved. It did not enable him to snatch from the devouring sea the woman he held so dear. He might speak with her, he grimly told himself, until the second before the Alice went down, he might gaiher every detail of her sufferings and anguish until the inevitable moment arrived, and the great pause warned him that the oleetric waves he transmitted were powerless any more to carry a message whither she had gone. Science, indeed, only seemed to aggravate the horror of his situation. It was a refinement of torture He knew all and could do nothing. In his mind's eye he could see the doomed yacht settling down in the heart of the troubled ocean, the water rising slowly and inevitably inch by inch in the engine-room. 1 H< 3 could see hope die out in the strained eyes of those on board as they searched in vain the horizon round for some sign ot succour. He could almost hear the last piteous human cry as the sea claimed its victims. Suddenly his gloomy forebodings were broken into by a reply from the White Rose. "Who are you?" "Anglo-American Telegraph Station, Land's End. Are you the S.Y. White Rose?" 1 "Yes. Hurry up with message, 1 wain to turn in again." It seemed to Marsham that he/could | almost hear the White Rose operator yawn. j "The S.Y. Alice," he signalled back, "is sinking somewhere about longitude 21, latitude 46 30. Work of two scoundrels on board who have escaped in only boat. Want you to go to her assistance." "Wait a moment, I am sending for captain and owner." There was a pause, then again the tape jerked itself out. "Why doesn't the Alice get in touch with us herself." "She's trying to. How do you lie?" "Can't say. Wait for captain. Should think about two hundred miles off." Marsham's face turned even paler. A half-stifled groan • escaped his lips. Two hundred miles away, and probably the White Rose could not do more than fourteen knots an hour! She would be too late. (To bo Continued).