Turning from the rail, the lieutenant lifted his eyes to where the phosphor-bronze aërials swung between the mastheads, the wires of each "T" held rigidly apart by their wooden stretchers. A passionate look flamed into his yellow face and gleamed from his slant eyes.
"Come, honorable Hertzian waves," he murmured, with a queer gesture of appeal directed at the swinging wires; "give the Sons of the Rising Sun the telltale sparks, the beautiful blue sparks! Let them spell success for Nippon and disaster for the American submarine!"
Taking a little image from his pocket—the image of a sitting Buddha—the lieutenant placed it on the heaving deck and prostrated himself before it. Then, in low breath, he murmured his supplications to the senseless ebony. In the midst of his appeal, a stifled crashing sound came from the wireless room. Starting to his feet, the lieutenant caught up the little idol and returned it to his pocket. Exultation arose to his lips, for his upward-turning eyes saw a blue spark wavering at the ends of the aërials, and to his ears came the hiss and crackle of broken sound as the wires plunged back and forth with the roll of the ship.
The operator appeared in the door of the "station" and nodded. The lieutenant rushed aft to notify the captain.
Presently Captain Ichi arrived in the wireless room and sank into a chair by the table.
"Getting anything important, Kaneko?"
The operator shook his head respectfully and continued to listen and to pencil what he heard on a tab of paper. Finally he settled back in his chair.
"There's a wireless station at Punta Arenas, in the strait, captain," said he.
"Then it must have been recently put there," answered Captain Ichi.
"The Chilians also have a convict settlement at the place."