“Let’s go see if the wireless is working,” suggested Ruth.  “It will take our minds off the fire to know that help is being called for—­and perhaps on the way.”

“Yes, it is working,” announced Alice, as they drew near the quarters occupied by the wireless operator and heard the spiteful snapping of the notched wheel of the spark-gap apparatus.

They looked in and saw the operator with the telephone receivers on his ears, while with nervous fingers he pressed the key that made and broke the circuit, thus sending out from the wire aerials between the masts the dots and dashes that, flying through the air, were received on other aerials and translated from meaningless clicks into words fraught with meaning.

“I must get a picture of that, too,” observed Russ, as he came up behind Paul, Ruth and Alice.  “May I?” he asked of the captain, who, at that moment came to give an order.

“Yes,” nodded the commander.  And while the vivid blue spark shot from the revolving wheel to the connection, where it was made and interrupted as the operator pressed the key, or allowed it to spring up, Russ made a short film.  The young man who was sending a message looked up as he finished and smiled at the group observing him.

“I got that smile, too,” Russ informed him.

“Did you get any reply?” asked Captain Falcon, as the operator removed the receivers in order to hear the commander’s question.

“The Bell, of the Downing Line, is within fifty miles of us,” the operator replied.  “She can come up when we need her.”

“I don’t think we shall,” the captain said.  “But kindly ask her to stand by during the night.”

“Then the fire isn’t altogether under control?” asked Paul.

“Not as much so as I would like to see it,” answered the commander, frankly.  “But we are keeping at it.”

He wrote out the message he wished sent to the Bell, and then the little audience gathered again at the door of the wireless room to watch the operator at work.

Russ made films as long as the daylight lasted, but finally the coming of night forced him to stop, and he put away his camera.

The fighting of the fire still went on, though little of it could be observed now.  There were no flames to be seen, but doubtless, down in the hold, where the cargo burned, there were angry, red tongues of fire.  But the compartment was kept closed.  It was now nearly full of water, the captain reported, and the fire must soon be extinguished.

“Unless it has crept to another compartment,” ventured Mr. Sneed.

“Hush!  Don’t let anyone hear you say such things!” cried Russ, indignantly.

Dinner was not a very cheerful meal, but all managed to eat something.  And the night was an uneasy one.  What sleep there was came only in catnaps, for there was the constant noise of the pumps, and the running about of the sailors on the decks.