He began to listen again for the elusive message. I turned to Platts.
"Where is it being sent from?" I asked.
Platts shook his head.
"That's the mystery," he declared. "Look!"--and he pointed to the
table; "according to the Marconi chart, there's a Messagerie boat due
west between us and Marseilles, and the homeward-bound P. & O. which
we passed this morning must be getting on that way also, by now. The
Isis is somewhere ahead, but I've spoken to all these, and the message
comes from none of them."
"Then it may come from Messina."
"It doesn't come from Messina," replied the man at the table,
beginning to write rapidly.
Platts stepped forward and bent over the message which the other was
writing.
"Here it is!" he cried, excitedly; "we're getting it."
Stepping in turn to the table, I leaned over between the two and read
these words as the operator wrote them down:
Dr. Petrie--my shadow . . .
I drew a quick breath and gripped Platts' shoulder harshly. His
assistant began fingering the instrument with irritation.
"Lost it again!" he muttered.
"This message," I began . . .
But again the pencil was traveling over the paper:
--lies upon you all . . . end of message.
The operator stood up and unclasped the receivers from his ears.
There, high above the sleeping ship's company, with the carpet of the
blue Mediterranean stretched indefinitely about us, we three stood
looking at one another. By virtue of a miracle of modern science, some
one, divided from me by mile upon mile of boundless ocean, had spoken
--and had been heard.
"Is there no means of learning," I said, "from whence this message
emanated?"
Platts shook his head, perplexedly.
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