“It doesn’t come from Messina,” replied the man at the table, beginning to write rapidly.
Platts stepped forward and bent over the message which the other was writing.
“Here it is!” he cried, excitedly; “we’re getting it.”
Stepping in turn to the table, I leaned over between the two and read these words as the operator wrote them down:
Dr. Petrie—my shadow...
I drew a quick breath and gripped Platts’ shoulder harshly. His assistant began fingering the instrument with irritation.
“Lost it again!” he muttered.
“This message,” I began...
But again the pencil was traveling over the paper:—lies upon you all... end of message.
The operator stood up and unclasped the receivers from his ears. There, high above the sleeping ship’s company, with the carpet of the blue Mediterranean stretched indefinitely about us, we three stood looking at one another. By virtue of a miracle of modern science, some one, divided from me by mile upon mile of boundless ocean, had spoken—and had been heard.