“There, that’s finished,” Randall exclaimed as he rose from the tuning device. He put on the head-gear and listened earnestly, moving the pointer back and forward in an endeavor to detect something which would tell him that the receiving circuit was complete. He pushed the buzzer with his finger and remained silent for several minutes afterward. “Just a faint tinkle,” he said finally. “Some one’s talking in Hongkong, probably, but it’s too faint to read.”
O’Neil went to report that all was in shape, while Randall locked up the room and put the key in his pocket.
The “Sylvia” was now near the latitude of Manila, and the lads and O’Neil could hardly resist the temptation to call up the admiral’s ship. Impey hung about them all evening, frequently asking them when they intended giving the admiral a report on the condition of affairs, for at midnight Manila would be only two hundred and fifty miles to the eastward, well within the sending range of the “Sylvia’s” wireless. But the lads would not enlighten him, and at last he became desperate.
“I might as well inform you now as any time,” Phil exclaimed after many appeals, “that I am not going to tell the admiral until the Chinese squadron is anchored where neither nation can find it.”
Impey could not believe his ears. Had the lad gone mad? What was his meaning?
“The Chinese squadron,” Phil added, “is going to sink metaphorically into the earth until all misunderstandings are over, and then like the Phœnix it will rise from its ashes and go to China, where it belongs.”
“But China doesn’t want it. She fears it on account of the internal disorders, and is anxious to be rid of the ships and their cost,” Impey exclaimed.
“Well, she’ll have to keep it until she can find some one anxious to buy,” Phil replied, tantalizingly calm despite the nervous irritability of his listener. “The United States doesn’t really want it, and Japan doesn’t, either; so why force a sale on a nation that is unwilling to buy?”
Impey threw up his hands in angry disgust.
“Do you mean that you have gone back on your compact with me?” he cried in much heat. “After taking my yacht, offered you for this purpose?”