"Not a word," yawned Parrington; "everything is still smashed. We might just as well be sitting under the receiver of an air pump." Harryman noticed that the boy stared at Parrington for a moment as if startled; but he instantly resumed his Mongolian expression of absolute innocence, and with his customary grin slipped sinuously through the door. Harryman experienced an unpleasant feeling of momentary discomfort, but, not being able to locate his ideas clearly, he irritably gave up the attempt to arrive at a solution of this instinctive sensation, mumbling to himself: "This tropical hell is enough to set one crazy." "No news of the fleet, either?" began Colonel McCabe again. "Positively nothing, either by wire or wireless. It seems as though the rest of the world had sunk into a bottomless pit. Not a single word has reached us from the outer world for six days." "Do you believe in the seaquake?" struck in Harryman mockingly. "Why not?" returned the colonel. Harryman jumped up, walked over to the window with long strides, threw out the end of his cigarette and lighted a new one. In the bright light of the flaming match one could see the commander's features twitching ironically; he was on the warpath again. "All the same, it's a queer state of affairs. Our home cable snaps between Guam and here, the Hong-Kong cable won't work, and even our island wire has been put out of commission; it must have been a pretty violent catastrophe--" came from another table. "--All the more violent considering the fact that we noticed nothing of it on land," said Harryman, thoughtfully blowing out a cloud of smoke and swinging himself up backward on the window-sill. "Exactly," rang out a voice; "but how do you account for that?" "Account for it!" cried Colonel Webster, in a thundering voice. "Our comrade of the illustrious navy of the United States of America has only one explanation for everything: his Japanese logarithms, by means of which he figures out everything. Now we shall hear that this seaquake can be traced to Japanese villainy, probably brought about by Japanese divers, or even submarine boats." And the colonel began to laugh heartily. Harryman ignored this attempt to resume their recent dispute, and with head thrown back continued to blow clouds of smoke nervously into the air. "But seriously, Harryman," began the colonel again, "can you give any explanation?" "No," answered Harryman curtly; "but perhaps you will remember who was the first to furnish an explanation of the breakdown of the cable. It was the captain of the Japanese _Kanga Maru_, which has been anchored since Tuesday beside the _Monadnock_, which I have the honor to command." "But, my good Harryman, you have hallucinations," interrupted the colonel. "The Japanese captain gave the latest Hong-Kong papers to the Harbor Bureau, and was quite astonished to hear that our cable did not work----" "When he was going to send a cablegram to Hong-Kong," added Harryman sharply.