"Got nerve, anyhow," said Bell grimly.
It swept across the ship and disappeared, but the noise of its engines did not dwindle more than a little. The blast of the siren seemed to summon it back again. Once more it came in sight, and this time it dived steeply, flashed across the forecastle deck amid a hideous uproar, desperately, horribly close to the dangling derrick-cables, and was gone.
BELL had seen it more clearly than anyone else on the ship, perhaps. He saw a man in the pilot's cockpit between wings and tail reach high and fling something downward, something with a long streamer attached to it. Bell had an instant's glimpse of the goggled face. Then he was darting forward, watching the thing that fell.
It took only a second. Two at most. But the thing seemed to fall with infinite deliberation, the streamer shivering out behind it. It fell at a steep slant, the forward momentum of the plane's speed added to its own drop. It swooped down, slanting toward the rail. . . .
Bell groaned. It struck the rail itself, and bounced. A sailor flung himself toward it. The streamer slipped from his fingers and slithered over the side.
Bell was at the railing just in time to see it drop into the water. He opened his mouth to shout, and saw it sink. The last of the streamer followed the dropped object down into green water when it was directfy below him.
His hands clenched, Bell stared sickly at the spot where it had vanished. An instant later he had whirled and was thrusting wide the wireless room door. The operator was returning to his key, grinning crookedly. He looked up sidewise.
"Tell them it went overside," snapped Bell. "Tell them to try it again. Ortiz is in hell! To try again! He's dying!"
THE operator looked up fascinatedly, his fingers working his key.
"Is he—bad?" he asked with a shuddering interest.
"He's dying!" snarled Bell, in a rage because of his helplessness. He had forgotten everything but the fact that a man below decks was facing the most horrible fate that can overtake a man, and facing it with a steadfast gameness that made Bell's heart go out to him.
"They don't die," said the operator. He shuddered. "They don't die of it."
His key stopped. He listened. His key clicked again.
"They only had two packages," he said a moment later. "They don't dare risk the other one. They say the fog ends twenty miles farther on. "They're going to land up there and taxi back on the surface of the water. It shouldn't be more than half an hour."
He pushed himself back from the table with an air of finality.
"That's all. They've signed off."
Bell felt rage sweeping over him. The operator grinned crookedly.
"Better go down and tie him up," he said, and licked his lips with the fascinated air of one thinking of a known and terrifying thing. "Better tie him up tight. It'll be half an hour more."
BELL went down the companion-ladder. The promenade was crowded with passengers, now, asking questions of each other. Some, frowning portentously, thought the plane an unscheduled ocean flier who had lost his way in the fog.
Paul Canalejas was close to Bell as he shouldered his way through the crowd.
"That was for him?" she asked, without moving her lips.
Bell nodded.
"Tell him," she said quietly, "I—pray for him."
Bell nodded abrutly and went into the saloon. It was nearly, empty. He wiped the sweat off his face. It was horrible to have to go down to Ortiz
