“Don’t know yet,” spoke Frank, again changing the capacity of the condenser; “looks as if——”
He ceased speaking suddenly. Sliding his hand across the table he made an adjustment to catch longer sound waves. Instantly a hail of aërial dots and dashes came pattering against his ear drums, like rain on a window pane.
With startling suddenness Frank sensed the meaning of the storm of desperate flashes.
“C-Q-D! C-Q-D! C-Q-D!”
“Some one out at sea is calling us in distress!” he cried loudly. The others, brim full of excitement, rose and crowded about him. But Frank waved them back.
“No questions yet, please!” he said sharply, and then bent all his faculties to catching the voice out of the black night.
CHAPTER XI.—“GOOD LUCK!”
The silence in the hut was absolute as Frank bent low over his instruments. Even Pudge was subdued for once. There is something thrillingly dramatic to the most phlegmatic of temperaments in the idea of a wireless call for aid. Across unknown miles the message comes winging through the air—an appeal out of space.
Of course, the others could not catch what was coming, for the whisper of the wireless waves sounds faint and shadowy even to one with the “phones” clasped to his ears. But Frank’s manner showed plainly enough that, whatever was winging its way to his organs of hearing, was exciting to the last degree.
Suddenly the boy switched to his transmitting apparatus. With his helix he began attuning the length of his sparks, while the snake-like blue flame hissed and crackled across the “high-efficiency” spark gap. It looked like a living thing of lambent fire, as it writhed and screamed in response to the pressure on the key.