"I fancy there is some chance of the doctor being unable to land when he reaches the rock. Do you agree with me?"
His voice rang sharply. Ben caught its note and dropped his weather-wise ambiguity.
"It'll blow harder, an' mebbe snaw agin," he said.
"I shall need some help here in that case, so I will retain the young ladies. Of course you can manage the boat easily enough without them?"
Pollard grinned reassuringly.
"We'm run straight in wi' thiccy wind," he said.
So they settled it that way, all so simply.
A man sets up two slim masts a thousand miles apart and flashes comprehensible messages across the void. The multitude gapes at first, but soon accepts the thing as reasonable. "Wireless telegraphy" is the term, as one says "by mail."
A whole drama was flowing over a curve of the earth at that moment but the Marconi station was invisible. There was no expert in telepathic sensation present to tell Brand and the fisherman that their commonplace words covered a magic code.
Jackson, white and mute, was lowered first. The brave fellow would not content himself with nursing his agony amidst the cushions aft. When Bates, given some slight strength by a stiff dose of brandy, was carried, with infinite care, down three flights of steep and narrow stairs, and slung to the crane in an iron cot to be lowered in his turn, Jackson stood up. Heedless of remonstrances, he helped to steady the cot and adjust it amidships clear of the sail.