“Every port watched. Fabos in Paris; white ensign off St. Michael’s; station safe; wait coming.”
Their reply was the impatient question:
“Are you Ross or Sycamore?”
I took it to mean that there were two ships for which they waited, and that the captains thereof were named respectively Ross and Sycamore. At a hazard, I chose the first name, and waited for them to go on. Never in all this world did the flashing voice of electricity mean so much to mortal man.
“We are short of coal and water,” the tidings went. “Hurry, for God’s sake, or we are driven into Rio.”
To this, my hands hot with the fever of discovery, I rejoined:
“Rio known—keep the seas; we reach you to-morrow.”
And then for a long while there was silence. I imagined that unknown crew debating my words as though they had been a message of their salvation. A relief ship was coming out to them. They were saved from the perils of the shore and that more terrible peril of thirst. When the machine next ticked out its unconscious confession, it was to bid me hasten, for God’s sake.
“I am Valentine Imroth. What has kept you ashore?”
“The police and Fabos.”