Edwin Balmer

“ The scientist tried to prevent him. “The one co-incidence of a woman's fear with a justification for it—a co-incidence of the sort makes you forget the thousands of times they have no foundation at all. If they on the Assyria sent this impulse to this woman here, why couldn't they send another to the Huron? If we willing it all together can get the Huron's operator to go to his key now, why can't we or the people on the Assyria signal the Huron's captain direct?” ”

“ But we knew that three hundred miles ahead, the greatest impulse that science could send through the air so far, could scarcely cause to tremble the most delicate diaphram in the telephone receivers lying upon the table in the Huron's “wireless” cabin—and that, cry as our operator might to our engine-room for current, he could send no louder alarm. ”

“ For an hour this one had been addressing to me his terse, nervous trivialities; for the bareheaded man dozed, unconcernedly, stirring at intervals only to shake the brine from his cheeks as the larger waves drenched us, and immediately falling to sleep again. ”

“ Co-Author of “The Surakarta,” and Author of “Via Wireless,” etc.
IT was eleven o'clock at night, ship's time, on the second night out from Gibraltar; and as the new twin-turbined Danube—fourteen thousand tons—bored into the black North Atlantic swell northwest by west on the “great circle” for New York, the sea-splash, when the bow dipped, flew the length of the promenade deck. The canvas shelter-strips, lashed to the rail during dinner so that the passengers might stay for a while longer in their steamer-chairs, had become useless hours before. Besides myself, only two men remained above. ”

“ The operator held his hand over the sending key.
“Shall I tell who they've got and to turn around and try to make us before they burn up?”
“With three hours? Tell them they haven't got the Huron, man! Tell them quick! Tell them to call it, call it, and keep on calling till they get it. It's their only chance! Tell them to think of nothing else! If they were steaming for us now we couldn't reach them in seven hours!”
“But you can't get a ship by 'wireless' if the man isn't at his key, sir! Or even if he was in the room without his receivers strapped to his ears! ”

“ The first of them already were upon the steps to the cabin. The stewards, under the direction of some officer, managed to keep the most of them back; but Austin himself, with the woman who had brought us the first alarm, forced his way up and in.
“We have saved them?” she clamored. ”We have saved them upon the Assyria?”
“The Huron is now alongside the Assyria!” the “wireless” operator cried. “The first boats from the Assyria are sending up the first passengers to the Huron's deck. They report everyone can be saved!”
“Everyone can be saved!”
“They're all forward of the fire! ”

“ However it had been given out, the first cabin, at least, had it accurately.
“They've got to get the Huron?” the woman who first had stirred us clamored of me. “And the Huron's operator's not in the cabin!”
There was nothing to do but to admit it.
“And you say—you 'all say there's not any way for the 'wireless' to call anyone into the cabin! There's not any! There's no chance at all of making them hear ' unless one man—the operator—happens to get up and go into the cabin and strap his receivers over his ears! ”

“ Where's the 'wireless' cabin? Take me to it!”
“It's shut. We've only one operator. He's not required to work at night except in emergencies or dangerous weather. He's asleep.”
“Then I shall wake him! Take me to him!” the girl commanded Austin.
I stayed on deck while they went in. He evidently had persuaded her, under pledge to return with the operator, to go to her own cabin and dress more warmly. She was better clothed, if little less disheveled, when she returned to the deck with the evangelist. The operator, in trousers, sweater and coat, came with them, regarding both suspiciously. ”

“ His current's going. They can't live in the engine-room any more. But he thinks the ship can last a little longer and they can live forward of the fire awhile if—”
“You can get the Huron for him?”
The operator, biting his lips, leaped at his key for answer. “Cra-ash!” the whole power of the ship's great dynamos shattered out their demand. “Crash!” again and again the current detonated. It blinded us with its burning blue flashes, as the current tore almost ceaselessly across the spark-gap ”