he position of the deserted ship was south of the regular steamer lanes on the TransPacific run. Only a trace of smoke on the northern horizon marked through the afternoon the passage of other craft. It was a long and lonely vigil for the waiting man. But the Bennington would return, and he listened in at intervals hoping to hear her friendly signal.
The batteries operating the Nagasaki's wireless were none too strong; Thorpe saved their strength, though he tried at times to raise the Bennington somewhere beyond his reach.
The sun was touching the horizon when he got his first response. "Keep up the old nerve," admonished the slow, careful sending of the Bennington's operator. "We have been delayed but we are on our way. Signed, Brent."
The man in the wireless room placed the oak bars across the door, and tried to believe he was nonchalant and unafraid as he laid out extra clips of cartridges. But his eyes persisted in following the sinking sun, and he watched from within his cage the coming of the quick dark.
The protecting glare of day must be unbearable to this monster from the lightless depths, and daylight was vanishing. Thorpe's mind was searching for additional means of defense. He found it in the cargo he had seen. The drums of carbide! He could scatter it on the deck—it reacted with water, and those slimy arms, if they came and touched it, could find the contact hot. He took his lantern and went hastily below to stagger back with a drum upon his shoulder.
In the half-light that was left him he forced the cover and then rolled the drum about the swaying deck. The gray, earthly lumps of carbide formed erratic lines. Useless perhaps, he admitted, but the threatening dark forced the man to use every means at his command.
e was scattering the contents of a second drum when he stiffened abruptly to rigid attention.