THE STORMY PETREL GETS AN ANSWER
The dash of rain which beat like a volley of lead upon the fuselage of the seaplane as she rose above the spray lasted but a moment.
"Just a warning of what's to come," Vincent called through the tube. "Think we could run away from the storm?"
"We'd just get lost on the ocean and not know what location to radiophone," grumbled his companion. "Better keep circling. We can get above the storm if we must."
Once more the weary circle was commenced. With little hope of sighting land, Vincent still fixed his gaze upon the black waters below, while he sent the flash of light, now far to the right, now to the left, and now straight beneath them.
"Someone must have caught our S. O. S." he told himself. "We ought to get sight of their lights pretty soon. But then," his hopes grew faint, "not many ships in these seas. Might not have heard us. Might not be able to reach us. Might—"
He broke off abruptly. A blinding flash of lightning had illumined the waters for miles in every direction. In that flash his eyes had seen something; at least, he thought they had; some craft away to the left of them; a craft which reminded him of one he had sailed upon many a time; his father's yacht, the Kittlewake.
"But of course it couldn't be," he told himself. "Nobody'd be crazy enough to—"
A second flash illumined the water, but this time, strain his eyes as he might, he caught no glimpse of craft of any sort.
"Must have dreamed it," he muttered. He closed his eyes for a second and in that second saw his sister Gladys clearly mirrored on his mind's vision. She was staggering down a pitching deck.