Harris.
Wendell laughed hysterically as he gave it to Carter, who was really faint with excitement. "The manager said they don't know the Intelligence in Syria," he laughed, as Carter was reading and rereading. "I wonder what he will think of that?" And he hurried away a cheering telegram to the unknown Harris, who was helping him to beat the world on the news story.
"If Monday morning's papers pass it," he went on, "we're safe. But that's a slim chance."
He waited up until six o'clock Monday morning to see. The only further news was a partial list of the saved, and a formal announcement from the Commander of Camperdown that the disaster had happened. To Wendell this fortune seemed incredible.
Two thousand miles away, Harris, a medical missionary at Tripoli, was in a more agitated state than was Wendell. He was the only English-speaking person in that squalid little Asiatic port. He came from Kentucky, and got his news of America through the weekly edition of the Intelligence, for which he was a subscriber. The day after Wendell sent his despatch he was passing the telegraph office. Abdallah Gazi, the Turkish operator, called him in, and asked him to translate it. As Harris read it, he saw the whole situation.
Abdallah had been the despair of the survivors of the disaster. As he hated the English, he had pretended to be more stupid than he really was. Harris was fired with ambition to help the paper he took, published by his countrymen, in his native land. But to get together the five hundred dollars necessary was no easy thing in that miserably poor village. He gave no heed to the furious Syrian sun; he toiled and wrestled with friends and acquaintances. By Monday afternoon he had the money, and began dictating two thousand English words, letter by letter, to the operator, who spoke only Arabic. It was a long and dreary task, and not until midnight was it done.
The first sheet of the great special, telling the pitiful story of Tryon's mistake, and its horrible result, was in Wendell's hands at five o'clock that Monday afternoon. Thanks to the difference of time, the last sheet reached him at ten o'clock, two hours earlier than the time at which Harris sent it. Wendell had the wires to New York open, and had warned the Intelligence of what was coming. As New York is five hours earlier than London, the editor of the Intelligence was reading the great beat on all the newspapers in the world at half past six o'clock. At seven an extra afternoon edition of the Evening Intelligence was on the streets of New York.
Next morning Wendell slept late. When his man awakened him, he was straightway at the bundle of morning papers. Every great London daily had its first story of the Victoria disaster, in large type, with huge head-lines. The eager British people had the news at last. But the date line of the story was not Tripoli. Every despatch began: "New York, June 26th.—The Intelligence has the following special from Tripoli."