“I told you they could hear it!” the operator gasped. He was bent over his table, his receivers to his ears, listening to the result of his message. “You haven’t done any harm,” Andy steadied him. “And look here! Now you’ve done it, you’ve got to stand by what you did! You can’t take back all that!” He pulled the operator away from his instruments as the beating on the door threatened the panels. “If you want excuse for not taking it back, just don’t get that fixed for a few hours!” He seized a stool, and raised it to break some of the connections of the wireless apparatus. The wireless operator, opposing him in fright, tripped him, and Andy fell, his full weight crashing the heavy stool into the condensers and coils before him. The operator pressed down his key as he bent over the wreck in horror. There came a yellow splutter, a loud crash of the powerful current, a blinding blue flash; then the smell of insulation burned, metal fused. And the door on the right to the deck burst open. Already Andy had unlocked the door on the other side; he pushed the wireless operator before him, and himself stumbled out upon the dark and slippery deck, where the spray from the sea flew in their faces. The operator disappeared; Andy, left alone, slowly understood that some general alarm, which could not have been caused by his act in the wireless station, was spreading through the ship. Passengers, unsteady and in panic, were appearing on deck; and now the air was not salt with the smack of the sea; some strange, subtle, sickening scent changed it; and there came the cry in wild fright: “Fire! Fire below! The ship’s on fire!” Men, women, and children, half dressed, or with overcoats over night robes, rushed out from crowded companionways. Sailors and stewards and stewardesses attempted to control these; there was no fire, they said; or it was not serious; it was now being put out. But more passengers in night robes overwhelmed them. Andy stood, dazed, as they crushed toward the wireless station and clamored: “Fire! The ship’s on fire! Call help! Call the _Corinthian_. We’re burning up!” The touch of some one, quite calm and controlled, made him look about. Roberta was beside him, still dressed as she had been; she had not gone to bed; she had heard the first reports of the fire. “There was an accident in the stores. Oil got afire and scattered. It seems to be beyond control. Get people to dress. The stewards and ones like you and I can bring out their clothes. Of course, we’ve called help by wireless. The _Corinthian_ can’t be more than thirty miles away.” “We can’t call it; it can’t come! It’s been called on an S. O. S. call to the _Wellington_!” “What’s happened to the _Wellington_?” “Nothing.” “Then why is the _Corinthian_ going to it?” Andy told her. “They must have our wireless repaired now,” she said, as they moved forward with the other passengers. “You couldn’t have broken it badly.”