While all these things were happening to the boys on the seaplane, Curlie Carson and Joe Marion were working hard to repair the damage done to their radiophone set by the lightning. With the boat pitching about as it was, and with the wind and waves keeping up a constant din, it was a difficult task.
Just what coils and instruments had been burned out it was difficult to tell. All these must be tested out by the aid of a storage battery. When the defective parts had been discarded, it was necessary to piece together, out of the remaining parts and the extra equipment, an entirely new set.
"Have to use a two-stage amplifier," shouted Curlie, making himself heard above the storm.
"Lower voltage on the grid, too," Joe shouted back.
"Guess it'll be fairly good, though," said Curlie, working feverishly. "Only hope it didn't burn out the insulation on our aerials. Want to get her going again quick. Want to bad. Lot may depend on that."
The insulation on the aerials was not burned out. After many minutes of nerve-racking labor they had the equipment together again and were ready to listen in.
Curlie flashed a short message in code, giving the name of their boat and its present location, then, with the receiver tightly clamped over his ears, he settled back in his chair.
For some time they sat there in silence, the two boys and Gladys Ardmore.
The beat of the waves was increasing. The wind was still rising, but as yet no rain was falling.
"Queer storm," shouted Joe. "Haven't gotten into it yet. Will though and it's going to be bad. Skipper says the only thing we can do is to fasten down all the hatches and hold her nose to the storm."
"Better see about the hatches," shouted Curlie.
Throwing open the door, letting in a dash of salt spray and a cold rush of wind as he did so, Joe disappeared into the dark.
Curlie and the girl were alone. The seat the girl occupied was clamped solidly to the wall. It had broad, strong arms and to these she clung. She was staring at the floor and seemed half asleep.
When Joe disappeared, Curlie once more became conscious of her presence and at once he was disturbed. Who would not have been disturbed at the thought of a delicate girl, accustomed to every luxury, being thrown into such desperate circumstances as they were in at the present moment.
"Not my fault," he grumbled to himself. "I didn't want her to go. Wouldn't have allowed her, either, had I known about it."
"Not your fault?" his inner self chided him. "Suppose you didn't plan this trip?"
"Well, anyway," he grumbled, "she needn't have come along, and, besides, circumstances have justified my theories. They are out here somewhere, those two boys, and since they are it's up to someone to try to save them."
Then suddenly he remembered that he had something to say to the girl. He opened his mouth to shout to her, but closed it again.
"Better wait till Joe comes," he told himself. "The more people there are to hear it, the more chances there are of its getting back to shore."
Joe blew back into the cabin a few moments later.
"Everything all right?" Curlie shouted.
At the sound of his voice, the girl started, looked up, then smiled; Joe nodded his head.
"Say, Joe, I'm hungry," shouted Curlie. "There's bread in the forward cabin and some milk in a thermos bottle. Couldn't manage coffee, but toast and milk'd be fine."
The girl sprang to her feet as if to go for the required articles, but Joe pushed her back into her chair.
"Not for you," he shouted. "It's gettin' dangerous."
"Joe," said Curlie, "there's a small electric toaster there in the cabin. Disconnect it and bring it in here. We'll connect it up and make the toast right here."
When the toaster had been connected, the girl, happy in the knowledge that she was able to be of service, toasted the bread to a brown quite as delicate as that to be found on a landlubber's table.
"Now," said Curlie as they sat enjoying this meager repast, "I've got something to tell you, something that I want someone else beside me to know. It's going to be an ugly storm and the Kittlewake is no trans-Atlantic liner. We may all get back to shore. We may not. If one of you do and I don't, I want you to tell this. It—it will sort of justify my apparent rashness in dragging you off on this wild trip."
He moved his chair close to the stationary seat of the girl and, gripping one of the arms of the seat, motioned Joe to move up beside them. It was only thus that he might be heard unless he were to shout at the top of his voice.
"You know," he said, a strange smile playing over his thin lips, "you folks probably have thought it strange that I should go rushing off on a trip like this without any positive knowledge that those two boys had started for that mysterious island shown on the map and spoken of in the writing on the back of the map, but you see I had more information than you thought. This I know for an almost positive fact," he leaned forward impressively: "The mysterious island of the chart does not exist."
"Oh!" the girl started back.
"It's a fact," said Curlie, "and I'll give you my proof."
He paused for a second. The girl leaned forward eagerly. Joe was all attention.
"When I went into that big library," he continued, "I was determined to find all the truth regarding that map that was to be had there. While you were looking at those ancient maps," he turned to Gladys, "I went into a back room and there the lady in charge gave me some bound reproductions of ancient maps to look at and some things to read, among them a volume of the 'Scottish Geographic Magazine.' I read them through carefully and—"
Suddenly he started violently, then clasped the receivers close to his ears.
"Just a moment. Getting something," he muttered.
A second later he seized a pencil and marked down upon a pad a series of dots and dashes.
Then, wheeling about, he put his fingers on a key to flash back an answer.
"It's the boys," he shouted. "Got their location. Joe, decode what I wrote there, then go ask the skipper how much we're off it."
He turned once more to click off his message, a repetition of the first one; then he shouted a second message into his transmitter.
Joe Marion studied the pad for a moment, then rushed out of the cabin.
All alert, Curlie sat listening for any further message which might reach him. Presently Joe returned. There was a puzzled look upon his face.
"Skipper says," he shouted, "that the point you gave me is the exact location of the island shown on that ancient map and that we must be about ten knots to the north of it. When I told him that the boys were in a seaplane at that point, he suddenly became convinced that there must be an island out there somewhere and refused to change his course.
"'For,' he says, 'if they've been sending messages from a plane in a gale like this they must be on the ground to do it and if on the ground, where but on an island? And if there's an island, how are we going to get up to her in the storm that's about to hit us. We'll be piled on the rocks and smashed in pieces.' That's what he said; said we'd be much safer in the open sea."
Curlie stared at the floor. His mind was in a whirl. Here he had been about to furnish proof that the mysterious island did not exist and just at that instant there came floating in from the air proof of the island's actual existence, proof so strong that even a seasoned old salt believed it and refused to change his course. What was he to say to that!
Fortunately, or unfortunately, he was to be given time enough to think about it, for at that moment, with an unbelievable violence the storm broke.
As they felt the impact of it, it was as if the staunch little craft had run head on into one of those steel nets used during the war for trapping submarines. She struck it and from the very force of the blow, recoiled. The thing she had struck, however, was not a steel net but a mountain of waters flanked by such a volume of wind as is seldom seen on the Atlantic.
"It's the end of the Kittlewake," thought Curlie. "You take care of her," he shouted in Joe's ear, at the same time jerking his thumb at Gladys. The next second he disappeared into the storm.
When Alfred Brightwood had tilted the nose of the Stormy Petrel upward and away from the threatening bank of clouds she rose rapidly. A thousand, two thousand, three, four, five thousand feet she mounted to dizzy heights above the sea.
As they mounted, the stars, swinging about in the sky, like incandescent bulbs strung on a wire, made their appearance here and there. They came out rapidly, by twos and threes, by scores and hundreds. In clusters and fantastic figures they swam about in the purple night.
Almost instantly the sea disappeared from beneath them and in its place came a new sea; a sea of dark rushing clouds. Rising two thousand feet above the level of the ocean, this mass of moisture hanging there in the sky took on the appearance of a second sea. As Vincent looked down upon it he found it easy to believe that were they to drop slowly down upon it, they would be seized upon and torn this way, then that by the violence of the storm that was even now raging beneath them, and that their plane would be cast at last, a shapeless mass, upon the real sea which was roaring and raging beneath it.
"How wonderful nature is!" he breathed. "It would be magnificent were it not so terrible."
He was thinking of the gasoline in their tank and he shuddered. Would it last until the storm had passed, or would they be obliged to volplane down into that seething tempest?
He put his lips to the tube. "You better use just enough gas to keep us afloat," he suggested.
Alfred muttered something like, "Think I'm a fool?" Then for a long time, with the black sea of clouds rising and falling, billowing up like the walls of a mammoth tent, then sagging down to rise again, they circled and circled. They were not circling now in search of adventure, to find some island which might bring them great wealth, but to preserve life. How long that circling could last, neither could tell.
When Curlie Carson left the wireless cabin of the Kittlewake, he grasped a rail which ran along the cabin, just in time to prevent himself from being washed overboard by a giant wave. As it was, the water lifted his feet from the deck and, having lifted him as the wind lifts a flag, it waved him up and down three times, at last to send him crashing, knees down, on the deck. The wind was half knocked out of him, but he was still game. He did not attempt to regain the wireless cabin but fought his way along the side of that cabin toward his own stateroom door.
Now a vivid flash of light revealed the water-washed deck. A coil of rope, all uncoiled by the waves, was wriggling like a serpent in the black sea.
"No use to try to save it," he mumbled. "No good here, anyhow."
A yellow light, hanging above his stateroom door, dancing dizzily, appeared at one moment to take a plunge into the sea and at the next to dash away into the ink-black sky.
Curlie was drenched to the skin. He was benumbed with the cold and shocked into half insensibility at the tremendous proportions of the storm. He wondered vaguely about the engineer below. Was the water getting at the engines? He still felt the throb of them beneath his feet. Well, that much was good anyway. And the skipper? Was he still at the wheel? Must be, for the yacht continued to take the waves head-on.
Short and light as she was, the craft appeared to leap from wave-crest to wave-crest. Now she missed the leap by a foot and the water drenched her deck anew. And now she overstepped and came down with a solid impact that set her shuddering from stern to keel.
"Good old Kittlewake," he murmured, "you sure were built for rough service!"
But now he had reached his stateroom door. With a lurch he threw open the door, with a second he fell through, a third slammed it shut.
One second his eyes roved about the place; the next his lips parted as something bumped against his foot.
Stooping, he lifted up a long affair the size and shape of a round cedar fencepost. It was this he had brought aboard just before sailing. It had been shaken down and had been rolling about the floor.
Having examined its wrapping carefully, he shook it once or twice.
"Guess you're all right," he muttered. "And you had better be! A whole lot depends on you in a pinch."
His eyes roved about the room. At length, snatching a blanket from his berth, he tore it into strips. Then, throwing back his mattress, he placed the postlike affair beneath it and lashed it firmly to the springs.
"There!" he exclaimed with much satisfaction, "you'll be safe until needed, if you are needed, and—and you never can tell."
The end of the seaplane's last flirt with death and destruction came suddenly and without warning. Overcome as he was by constant watching, dead for sleep and famished for food, Vincent Ardmore had all but fallen asleep in his seat on the fuselage when a hoarse snort from one of the motors, followed quickly by a rattling grate from the other, startled him into complete wakefulness.
The silence which followed these strange noises was appalling. It was like the lull before a hurricane.
"Gas is gone," said Alfred. There was fear and defiance in his tone, defiance of Nature which he believed had treated him badly "Have to go down now."
"Go down!" Vincent shivered at the thought. Go down to what?
He glanced below, then a ray of hope lighted his face. The storm was passing—had all but passed. The clouds beneath them were no longer densely black. A mere mist, they hung like a veil over the sea.
"But the water?" His heart sank. "It will still be raging."
The storm had not so far passed as he at first thought. The plane cut a circling path as she descended. Her wings were broad; her drop was gradual. As they entered the first layer of clouds, she gave a lurch forward, but with wonderful control the young pilot righted her. Seconds passed, then again she tipped, this time more perilously. But again she was righted. Now she was caught in a little flurry of wind that set her spinning. A nose-dive seemed inevitable, but once more she came to position. Now, as they neared the surface of the sea, a wild, racing wind, the tail of the storm, seized them and hurled them headlong before it. In its grasp, there was no longer thought of control. The only question now was how they would strike the water and when. The very rush of the wind tore the breath from Vincent's lungs. Crushed back against the fuselage, he awaited the end. Once, twice, three times they turned over in a mad whirl. Then, with a sudden rending crash and a wild burst of spray, they struck.
The plane had gone down on one wing. For a second she hung suspended there. Vincent caught his breath. If she went one way there was a chance; if the other, there was none. He thought of loosening his straps, but did not. So he hung there. Came a sudden crash. The right motor had torn from its lashings and plunged into the sea.
The next second the plane settled to the left. Saved for a moment, the boy drew a deep breath. A second crash and the remaining motor was gone. During this crash the boy was completely submerged, but the buoyant plane brought him up again. Then, for a moment, he was free to think, to look about him. Instinctively his eyes sought the place where his companion had been seated. It was empty. Alfred was gone.
Covering his eyes with his hands, he tried to tell himself it was not true. Then, suddenly uncovering them, he searched the surface of the troubled sea. Once he fancied he caught a glimpse of a white hand above a wave. He could not be sure; it might have been a speck of foam. Only one thing he could be sure of; his throbbing brain told it to him over and over: Alfred Brightwood, his friend, was gone—gone forever. The sea had swallowed him up.
When Curlie Carson had fastened the mysterious post-shaped affair to the springs of his berth, he fought his way against wind, waves and darkness back to the radiophone cabin.
"Anything come in?" he asked as he shook the dampness from his clothing.
"Nothing I could make out," shouted Joe. "Got something all jumbled up with static once but couldn't make it out." Rising, he took the receiver from his head and handed it to Curlie. Then, as the craft took a sudden plunge, he leaped for a seat. Missing it, he went sprawling upon the floor.
In spite of the seriousness of their dilemma, the girl let forth a joyous peal of laughter. Joe's antics as he attempted to rise were too ridiculous for words.
There was tonic for all of them in that laugh. They felt better because of it.
Some moments after that, save for the wild beat of the storm, there was silence. Then, clapping the receivers to his ears, Curlie uttered an exclamation. He was getting something, or at least thought he was. Yes, now he did get it, a whisper. Faint, indistinct, mingled with static, yet audible enough, there came the four words:
"Hello there, Curlie! Hello!"
At that moment the currents of electricity playing from cloud to cloud set up such a rattle and jangle of static that he heard no more.
"It's that girl in my old home town, in that big hotel," he told himself. "To think that her whisper would carry over all those miles in such a gale! She's sending on 600. Wonder why?"
"Ah, well," he breathed, when nothing further had come in, "I'll unravel that mystery in good time, providing we get out of this mess and get back to that home burg of ours. But now—"
Suddenly he started and stared. There had come a loud bump against the cabin; then another and another.
"It's the boats!" he shouted. "They've torn loose. Should have known they would. Should have thought of that. Here!" He handed the receiver to Joe and once more dashed out into the storm.
The Kittlewake carried two lifeboats. As he struggled toward where they should have been, some object swinging past him barely missed his head.
Instantly he dropped to the deck, at the same time gripping at the rail to save himself from being washed overboard.
"That," he told himself, "was a block swinging from a rope. The boat on this side is gone. Worse luck for that! We—we might need 'em before we're through with this."
Slowly he worked his way along the rail toward the stern. Now and again the waves that washed the deck lifted him up to slam him down again.
"Quit that!" he muttered hoarsely. "Can't you let a fellow alone."
Arrived at last on the other side, he rose to his knees and tried to peer above him to the place where the second lifeboat should be swinging. A flash of lightning aided his vision. A groan escaped his lips.
"Gone!" he muttered. "Should have thought of that! But," he told himself, "there's still the raft!"
The raft, built of boards and gas-filled tubes, was lashed to the deck forward. Thither he made his difficult way.
To his great relief, he found the raft still safe. Since it was thrashing about, he uncoiled a rope closely lashed to the side of a cabin and with tremendous effort succeeded in making the raft snug.
"There, now, you'll remain with us for a spell," he muttered.
Clinging there for a moment, he appeared to debate some important question.
"Guess I ought to do it," he told himself at last. "And I'd better do it now. You never can tell what will happen next and if worst comes to worst it's our only chance."
Fighting his way back to his cabin, he returned presently with the post-shaped affair which he had lashed to the springs of his berth.
This he now lashed to the stout slats of wood and crossbars of metal on the raft. When he had finished it appeared to be part of the raft.
"There, my sweet baby," he murmured, "sleep here, rocked on the cradle of the deep, until your papa wants you. You're a beautiful and wonderful child!"
Then, weary, water-soaked, chilled to the bone, stupefied by the wild beat of the storm, aching in every muscle but not downhearted, he fought his way back to the radio cabin.
Nature has been kind to man. She has so made him that he is incapable of feeling all the tragedy and sorrow of a terrible situation at the time when it bursts upon him. Vincent Ardmore, as he clung to the wrecked plane, with his companion gone from him forever, did not sense the full horror of his position. He realized little more than the fact that he was chilled to the bone, and that the wind and waves were beating upon him unmercifully.
Then, gradually there stole into his benumbed mind the thought that he might improve his position. The platform above him still stood clear of the waves. Could he but loosen the straps which bound him to the fuselage, could he but climb to that platform, he would at least be free for a time from the rude beating of the black waters which rolled over him incessantly.
With the numbed, trembling fingers of one hand he struggled with the stubborn, water-soaked straps while with the other he clung to the rods of the rigging. To loosen his grip for an instant, once the straps were unfastened, meant almost certain death.
After what seemed an eternity of time the last strap gave way and, with a wild pounding of his heart, he gripped the rods and began to climb.
As he tumbled upon the platform, new hope set the blood racing through his veins.
"There might yet be a chance," he murmured, almost joyfully; "the storm is breaking." His eyes wandered to the fleeting clouds. "Dawn's coming, too. I—I—why, I might send a message. The motor's gone dead, of course, but there are still storage batteries. If only the insulations are good. If water has not soaked in anywhere!"
With trembling fingers he tested the batteries. A bright flash of fire told him they were still alive. Then with infinite care he adjusted the instruments. At last he tapped a wire and a grating rattle went forth.
"She's still good," he exulted.
Then slowly, distinctly, he talked into the transmitter, talked as he might had he been surrounded by the cozy comforts of home. He gave his name, the name of his aircraft; told of his perilous position; gave his approximate location and asked for aid. Only once his voice broke and fell to a whisper. That was when he tried to tell of the sad fate of his companion.
Having come to the end, he adjusted the receiver to his ears and sat there listening.
Suddenly his face grew tense with expectation. He was getting something, an answer to his message.
For a full moment he sat there tense, motionless. Then, suddenly, without warning, a new catastrophe assailed him. A giant wave, leaping high, came crashing down upon the wreckage of the plane. There followed a snapping and crashing of braces. When the wave had passed, the platform to which he clung floated upon the sea. His radiophone equipment was water-soaked, submerged. His storage batteries had toppled over to plunge into the sea.
So there he clung, a single individual on a mass of wreckage, helpless and well-nigh hopeless in the midst of a vast ocean whose waves were even now subsiding after a terrific storm.
"I'm getting a message!" exclaimed Curlie excitedly. "Getting it distinct and plain, and it's—it's from them."
"Oh, is it?" the girl sprang from the seat.
"From your brother. They've been wrecked. They're not on an island but on the sea. Safe, though, only—" he paused to listen closely again—"I can't just make out what he says about his companion."
"Oh! Please, please let me listen!" Gladys Ardmore gripped his arm.
Quickly Curlie snatched the receiver from his head and pressed it down over her tangled mass of brown hair.
She caught but a few words, then the voice broke suddenly off, but such words as they were; such words of comfort. The voice of her only brother had come stealing across the storm to her, assuring her that he was still alive; that there was still a chance that he might be saved. She pressed the receivers to her ears in the hopes of hearing more.
In the meantime Curlie was answering the message. In quiet, reassuring tones he gave their location and told of their purpose in those waters and ended with the assurance that if it were humanly possible the rescue should be accomplished.
"And we will save them," he exclaimed. "At least we'll save your brother."
"You don't think—" Gladys did not finish.
"I hardly know what to think about your brother's chum," Curlie said thoughtfully. "But this we do know: Your brother is clinging to the wreckage of a seaplane out there somewhere. And we will save him. See! the storm is about at an end and morning is near!" He pointed to the window, where the first faint glow of dawn was showing.
For a moment all were silent. Then suddenly, without warning, there came a grinding crash that sent a shudder through the Kittlewake from stem to stern.
"What was that?" exclaimed Joe Marion, springing to his feet from the floor where he had been thrown.
"We struck something!" Curlie was out upon the deck like a shot.
He all but collided with the skipper, who had deserted his wheel.
"We 'it somethin'," shouted the skipper, "an' she's sinkin' by the larboard bow. Gotta' git off 'er quick. Boats are gone! Everythin's gone."
"No," said Curlie calmly, "the raft forward is safely lashed on."
The engineer appeared from below. The engine had already ceased its throbbing.
"She's fillin' fast," he commented in a slow drawl.
"You two get the raft loose," said Curlie. "I'll get the girl."
Dashing to his stateroom he seized two blankets and a large section of oiled cloth. With these he dashed to the radio room.
"Got to get out quick!" he exclaimed.
Before she could realize what he was doing, he had seized the girl and had wrapped her round and round with the blankets, then with the oiled cloth. Joe had rushed out to help with the raft. Curlie carried the girl outside and, when the raft with the others aboard was afloat, handed her down to the skipper.
"Try and keep her dry," he said calmly. "We'll all get soaked, but we can stand it for a long time; a girl can't."
"Now push off!" he commanded. "Get good and clear so that the wreck will not draw you down."
"You'll come with us," said the skipper sternly. Curlie had not intended going with them. He had meant to remain behind and send a call for aid, then to swim for the raft. But now, as he saw the water gaining on the stricken craft, he realized how dangerous and futile it would be. He was needed on the raft to help get her away. Having seen all this at a flash he said:
"All right; I'll go." Having dropped to the raft, and seized a short paddle, he joined Joe and the engineer in forcing the unwieldy raft away from the side of the doomed Kittlewake.
They were none too soon, for scarcely two minutes could have elapsed when with a rush that nearly engulfed them the boat keeled up on end and sank from sight.
"And now," said Joe addressing Curlie as he settled back to a seat on one of the gas-filled tubes, "you can test out what you said once about keeping your radiophone dry and tuned up under any and every circumstance. Suppose you tune her up now and get off an S.O.S."
There was a smile on the lips of the undaunted young operator as he said with a drawl:
"Give me time, Joe, old scout, give me time."
The girl, staring out from her wrappings, appeared to fear that the two boys had gone delirious over this new catastrophe.
But only brave and hardy spirits can joke in the midst of disaster, and as for Curlie, he really did have one more trick up his sleeve.
As the old skipper sat staring away at the point where his craft had disappeared beneath the dark waters, he murmured:
"'Twasn't much we 'it; fragment from an iceberg 'er somethin', but 'twas enough. An' a good little craft she was too."
The storm had passed, but the waves were still rolling high. The raft tilted to such an angle that now they were all in danger of being pitched headforemost into the sea, and now in danger of falling backward into the trough of the waves.
Soaked to the skin, shivering, miserable, the boys and men clung to the raft, while the girl bewailed the fact that she was not permitted to suffer with them. Wrapped as she was, and carefully guarded from the on-rush of the waves, she escaped all the miserable damp and chill of it.
"Shows you're a real sport," Curlie's lips, blue with cold, attempted a smile, "but you've got to let us play the gentleman, even out here."
When the waves had receded somewhat, Curlie began digging at one of the tubes beneath his feet. Having at length unfastened it, he stood it on end to unscrew some fastenings and lift off the top.
"Canisters of water and some emergency rations!" exclaimed Joe, as he peered inside. "Great stuff!"
They had taken a swallow of water apiece and were preparing to munch some hardtack and chocolate when Gladys exclaimed:
"Look over there. What's that?"
"There's nothing," said the engineer after studying the waves for a moment.
"Oh, yes there was!" the girl insisted emphatically. "Something showed up on the crest of a wave. It's in the trough of the wave now. It'll come up again."
"Bit of wreckage from our yacht," suggested Joe.
"Not much wreckage on 'er," said the skipper. "All washed off 'er long before she sank."
"What could it be then?" The girl was fairly holding her breath. "It couldn't be—"
"Don't get your hopes up too high," cautioned Curlie. "Of course miracles do happen, but not so very often."
They were all straining their eyes when at last the thing appeared once more on the crest of the wave.
"Wreckage! A mass of it!" came from the skipper.
"And—and there's a hand!" exclaimed Curlie.
"The paddles, boys! The paddles! Every 'and of you, hup an' at it," shouted the skipper.
The wildest excitement prevailed, yet out of it all there came quick and concerted action. Three paddles flashed as, straining every muscle, they strove to bring the clumsy raft nearer the wreck. With tears in her eyes, the girl begged and implored them to unwrap her and allow her to have a hand in the struggle.
A minute passed. No longer chilled but steaming from violent exertion, they strained eager eyes to catch another glimpse of the wreck.
"There—there it is!" exclaimed the girl, overcome with joy. "You're gaining! You're gaining!"
Five minutes passed. They gained half the distance. Eight minutes more; the hand on the wreckage rose again. They were getting nearer.
Suddenly the girl uttered a piercing cry of joy:
"It is Vincent! It is! It is!"
And she was right. A moment later, as they dragged the all but senseless form from the seaplane, they recognized him at once as the millionaire's son.
He had drifted in the benumbing water so long that had they been delayed for another hour they would have found nothing more than a corpse awaiting them.
As Curlie tore Vincent's sodden outer garments from him he saw the girl carefully unrolling the blankets and oiled covering from about her. He did not protest. To him the thought of seeing this girl half drowned and chilled through by the spray which even now at times dashed over the raft, was heartbreaking, but he knew it was necessary if the life of her brother was to be saved.
"Brave girl!" he murmured as he wrapped Vincent in the coverings and passed him on to the skipper.
"And now," he said, "the time has come to think of other things. I believe the waves have sufficiently subsided to enable us to dare it."
He fumbled once more at the raft, at last to bring up a long, post-shaped affair.
"More rations," murmured Joe, swallowing his last bite of hardtack; "a regular commissary. But why get them out at this time?"
"You wait," smiled Curlie.
He was standing up. After telling Joe to steady him, he began tearing away at the upper end of the mysterious package. In a moment, he took out some limp, rubber affairs.
"Toy balloons," jeered Joe.
"Something like that," Curlie smiled.
He next brought out a small brass retort and a tiny spirit lamp.
"Lucky our matches are dry," he murmured, after unwrapping some oiled cloth and lighting the spirit lamp with one of the matches inclosed.
After firmly tying the end of a toy balloon over the mouth of the retort he held the spirit lamp beneath the bowl of the retort. At once the balloon began to expand.
"Chemicals already in the retort," he explained.
When the balloon was sufficiently inflated, he quickly tied it at the mouth, then began inflating another.
"The gas is very buoyant," he explained. "Hold that," he said as he passed the string to the engineer.
"There's enough," he said quietly when the third had been filled.
He next drew forth some shiny fine copper wire coiled about some round, insulated bars.
When he had fastened the balloons to one end of the bars, he attached a strong cord to the balloons, then allowed them to rise, at the same time paying out the strands of copper wire.
"Not very heavy wire for an aerial," he remarked, "but heavy enough. We'll have a perpendicular aerial, which is better than horizontal, and it'll hang pretty high. All that's in our favor."
When the balloons had risen to a height which allowed the aerial, to which was attached a heavier insulated wire, to float free, he gave the cord to the engineer and began busying himself at putting together what appeared to be a small windmill with curved, brass fans.
"A windmill," he explained, "is the surest method of obtaining a little power. Always a little breeze floating round. Enough to turn a wheel. This one is connected direct with a small generator. Gives power enough for a radiophone. Might use batteries but they might go dead on you. Windmill and generator is as good after ten years as ten days.
"There you are," he heaved a sigh of relief, as he struck the transmitter which he had taken from his apparently inexhaustible "bag of tricks."
"Unless I miss my guess, we have a perfectly good radiophone outfit of fair power. All the rest of it is stowed down there in the bottom. We should be heard distinctly at from a hundred to five hundred miles. In the future," he smiled, "every lifeboat and raft will be equipped with one of these handy little radiophone outfits, which are really not very expensive."
Then, with all eyes fixed upon him, he began to converse with the unseen and unknown, who, sailing somewhere on that vast sweep of water, were, they hoped, to become their rescuers.
In perfectly natural tones he spoke of their catastrophe and their present predicament. He gave their approximate location and the names of their party. This after an interval of two minutes, he repeated.
Then, suddenly his lips parted in a smile. The others watched him with strained attention. After a minute had elapsed, he said with apparent satisfaction:
"We'll await your arrival with unmixed pleasure.
"The Steamship Torrence," he explained, "in crossing the Atlantic was driven two hundred miles off her course. She is now only about seventy-five miles from us. Being a fast boat, she should reach us in three or four hours.
"And now," he said with a smile, "since we have no checker-board on deck and are entirely deprived of musical instruments of any kind, perhaps you would like to hear me tell why I was sure the mysterious island which has caused us so much grief, did not exist."
"By the way," he said turning to Vincent, "do you chance to have the original of that old map with you?"
The boy pointed to his aviator's sodden leather coat. Although he had gained much strength from the warm blankets, he had found himself unable to speak of the tragedy which had befallen his companion on the Stormy Petrel. Now as he saw Curlie draw the water-soaked map from the pocket of his coat, a look of horror overspread his face and he muttered hoarsely:
"Throw it into the sea. It brings nothing but bad luck."
"No, no," said Curlie, "we won't do that."
"Then you must keep it," the other boy exclaimed. "I don't want ever to see it again. Alfred made me a present of it just before we hopped off."
"All right," said Curlie, "but you are parting with a thing of some value."
"Value!" exclaimed Vincent. Then he sat staring at Curlie in silence as much as to say: "You too must have been bitten by the gold-bug." But that Curlie had not been bitten by that dangerous and poisonous insect will be proved, I think, by the pages which follow.