"Oh, is it?" the girl sprang from the seat.
"From your brother. They've been wrecked. They're not on an island but on the sea. Safe, though, only—" he paused to listen closely again—"I can't just make out what he says about his companion."
"Oh! Please, please let me listen!" Gladys Ardmore gripped his arm.
Quickly Curlie snatched the receiver from his head and pressed it down over her tangled mass of brown hair.
She caught but a few words, then the voice broke suddenly off, but such words as they were; such words of comfort. The voice of her only brother had come stealing across the storm to her, assuring her that he was still alive; that there was still a chance that he might be saved. She pressed the receivers to her ears in the hopes of hearing more.
In the meantime Curlie was answering the message. In quiet, reassuring tones he gave their location and told of their purpose in those waters and ended with the assurance that if it were humanly possible the rescue should be accomplished.
"And we will save them," he exclaimed. "At least we'll save your brother."
"You don't think—" Gladys did not finish.
"I hardly know what to think about your brother's chum," Curlie said thoughtfully. "But this we do know: Your brother is clinging to the wreckage of a seaplane out there somewhere. And we will save him. See! the storm is about at an end and morning is near!" He pointed to the window, where the first faint glow of dawn was showing.
For a moment all were silent. Then suddenly, without warning, there came a grinding crash that sent a shudder through the Kittlewake from stem to stern.