Emotion choked the speaker, but Paul Lavelle started at the sound of that voice. It called to him across fourteen years of silence. He looked up dazed at a man built like himself and dressed in the uniform of a United States naval commander.
"Tommy—Tommy Winterton," he murmured.
"Bet your boots it's Tommy!" came the answer with a bit of a sniffle in it.
"But where am I? Where——" Terror seized him. "Emily, Emily!" he called.
"She's below, Paul, sleeping. She's been up here, sitting where I am, nearly all night."
"But how——Where——"
"Stow your questions till I get through. I've a lot to tell you."
Paul subsided with a wondering gaze fixed on the speaker.
"I've a lot to tell that'll make you want to live; that ought to bring you off your back quicker than you can say Jack Robinson," Winterton went on. "You haven't swallowed any steam—you're burned up a bit outside and you're just as good-looking as ever."
"But where am I? What has happened?"