CHAPTER IX—THE MIDNIGHT INTRUDER
“He was stooping over the desk, rummaging about the papers and dispatches,” said Sam in response to Jack’s eager questions.
“Did he take anything?” asked Jack.
“I don’t know. I called out to him and asked him what he was doing.”
“Yes; what did he say?”
“He didn’t say a word. Just hurried out. Who was he?”
“A man named Jarrold. He’s a first-cabin passenger. He came in here this evening and was much interested in getting first news of a yacht called the Endymion.”
“I don’t like his looks.”
“Frankly, neither do I, and yet one cannot let a man’s appearance count against him. But if he was rummaging about that desk, that is another matter.”
“I think he knows something about wireless himself. I saw him fiddling with the key.”
“At any rate, I’ll keep a close eye on Mr. Jarrold,” Jack promised himself. “I don’t quite know what all this means, but I bet I’ll find out before it’s over!”
There was not much more sleep for Sam that night. He fought bravely against his seasickness and took the key for a time while Jack stole a catnap. Both boys worked hard to get in touch with the Endymion once more, but they failed to raise her operator. So far as Jack could make out, nothing had been taken from the desk by Jarrold; and the boy came to the conclusion that the man, disbelieving his word, had searched the desk for some evidence of a previous message from the Endymion.
At breakfast the next morning Jarrold, cleanly shaven around his blue chin, appeared in the saloon of the ship accompanied by a very pretty young lady, who, Jack learned, was his niece, Miss Jessica Jarrold. The man did not raise his glance to Jack, although the latter eyed him constantly. The young woman, though, regarded Jack with a somewhat curious gaze from time to time. He was pretty sure in his own mind that she knew of the events of the night.
In fact, she made it a point to leave the table at the same time as did Jack. As they both emerged on deck through the companionway she addressed him.
“Have you heard anything more of the Endymion?” she asked.
Although the sea was still running high, the sky was clear and the weather good. She steadied herself against a stanchion as the ship pitched, and Jack found himself thinking that she made a pretty picture there. She was clad in a loose, light coat, and bareheaded, except for a scarf passed over a mass of auburn hair, from which a few rebellious wind-blown curls escaped.
Jack raised his uniform cap.
“Nothing, Miss Jarrold,” he said. “Your——”
“My uncle,” she continued for him, “is very anxious to be informed as soon as you do hear.”
“Of course, the captain will have to be told first,” he said. Her dark eyes snapped and she bit her lip with a row of perfectly even, gleaming little teeth.
“Can’t it be arranged so that my uncle can know first about it?” she said, breaking into a smile after her momentary display of irritation. “Suppose you told—well, me, for instance.”
“I would be only too glad to do anything to oblige you, Miss Jarrold,” said Jack deferentially, “but that is out of the question.”
“But why?” she demanded.
“It’s a rule,” responded Jack.
“Oh, dear, what is a stupid old rule! My uncle is rich and would pay you well for any favor you did him, and then I should be awfully grateful.”
“I’m just as sorry as you are,” Jack assured her, “but I simply could not do it.”
“Well, will you let my uncle and myself sit up in your wireless room and wait any word you happen to catch?”
“That, too, I am afraid I shall have to refuse to do,” said Jack. “Such a procedure would also be against the rules; and especially after something that happened last night, I am determined to enforce the order to the letter.”
“What happened last night?” she asked, quizzically eying him through narrowed lids.
“I am afraid you will have to ask your uncle about that, Miss Jarrold. No doubt he will tell you.”
Eight bells rang out, and Jack, raising his cap, said:
“That’s my signal to go on duty. Depend upon it, though, Miss Jarrold, if I get any word from the Endymion which I can give you without violation of the rules, or if any message comes for either yourself or your uncle, you will be the first to get it.”
She made a gesture of impatience and turned to meet her uncle, who was just emerging from the companionway. Jarrold glared at Jack with an antagonism he did not take much trouble to conceal.
“Any news of the Endymion?” he growled out in his deep, rumbling bass.
“As I just told Miss Jarrold, there isn’t,” said Jack. “And, by the way, I hope you had a pleasant evening in my cabin last night.”
“I left there as soon as you did, right after the short circuit,” said Jarrold, turning red under Jack’s direct gaze.
“I’m sorry to contradict you, Mr. Jarrold,” replied Jack, holding the man with keen, steady eyes that did not waver under the other’s angry glare. “You were in there quite a time after I left.”
“I was not, I tell you,” blustered Jarrold. “You are an impudent young cub. I shall report you to the captain.”
“I would advise you not to,” said Jack calmly. “If you did, I might also have to turn in a report from Assistant Sam Smalley, who was in the other room all the time and saw almost every move you made.”
“What! there was someone there?” blurted out Jarrold. And then, seeing the error he had made, he turned to his niece. “Come, my dear, let us take a turn about the decks. I refuse to waste more time arguing with this young jackanapes.”
CHAPTER X—A MESSAGE IN SECRET CODE
Later that morning something happened which caused Jack to cudgel his brain still further to explain the underlying mystery that he was sure encircled the girl and Jarrold, and in which Colonel Minturn was in some way involved.
He was sitting at the key with the door flung open to admit the bright sunshine which sparkled on a sea still rough, but as a mill pond compared with the tumult of the night before, when there came a sudden call.
“Tropic Queen. Tropic Queen. Tropic Queen.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” flashed back Jack.
He turned around to Sam.
“I’ll bet a million dollars that it is a navy or an army station calling,” he said. “You can’t mistake the way those fellows send. It is quite different from a commercial operator’s way of pounding the brass.”
A moment later he was proved to be right.
“This is the Iowa,” came the word. “We are relaying a message from Washington to Colonel Minturn on board your ship. Are you ready?”
“Let her come,” flashed back Jack.
He drew his yellow pad in front of him and sat with poised pencil waiting for the message to come through the air from a ship that he knew was at least two hundred miles from him by this time.
“It is in code; the secret government code,” announced the naval man.
“That makes no difference to me,” rejoined Jack. “Pound away.”
“All right, old scout,” came through the air, and then began a topsyturvy jumble of words utterly unintelligible to Jack, of course.
The message was a long one, and about the middle of it came a word that made Jack jump and almost swallow his palate.
The word was Endymion, the name of the yacht that had sent out a call for Jarrold through the storm.
Then, closely following, came a name that seemed to be corelated to every move of the yacht: James Jarrold!
At last the message, about two hundred words long, was complete. It was signed with the President’s name, so Jack knew that it must be of the utmost importance. He turned in his chair as he felt someone leaning over him and noticed a subtle odor of perfume. Miss Jarrold, with parted lips, was scanning the message eagerly. He caught her in the act.
But the young woman appeared to be not the least disconcerted by the fact. With a wonderful smile she extended a sheet of paper.
“Will you send this message for me as soon as you can, please?” she asked.
Jack was taken aback. He had meant to accuse her point blank of trying to read off a message which was clearly of a highly important nature. But her clever ruse in providing herself with the scribbled message that she now held out to him had quite taken the wind out of his sails.
“Here, Sam, take this message to Colonel Minturn at once,” he said, thrusting the paper into Sam’s hands and carefully placing his carbon copy of it in a drawer.
“Now, Miss,” he said, looking the girl full in the eyes, “I’ll take your message.”
“Oh, I’ve changed my mind now,” said the girl suddenly turning. “Sorry to have troubled you for nothing. Don’t forget about the Endymion now.”
And she was gone.
“Well, what do you know about that?” muttered Jack. “A woman is certainly clever. Of course, she merely came in here to see what was going on, and, by Jove, she came in at just the right time, too. Lucky the message was in code. And then she was foxy enough to have that message of hers all ready so that I couldn’t say a thing. Oh, she’s smart all right! I wish I knew what game was up. I was right about Colonel Minturn playing some part in it, judging from that dispatch, but for the life of me I can’t make out what is up.”
He was still reflecting over this when Colonel Minturn, with Sam close on his heels, entered.
Jack saluted him.
“Good morning,” said the colonel, introducing himself, “I am Colonel Minturn. I have just received a cipher dispatch and want to send a reply.”
“I guess I’ll have to relay it through the Iowa if it is for Washington,” said Jack.
“That is just its destination,” was the rejoinder. “By the way, I hear from the captain that you did a very brave act last night in climbing the foremast in the storm and repairing the wireless. That was nervily done and I want to compliment you on it.”
“Glory! And he didn’t even breathe a word of it to me!” muttered Sam under his breath.
Jack got red in the face. “Why, that was nothing, Colonel,” he said. “It had to be done, and nobody but I could have done it.”
“You are as modest as all true heroes,” said the colonel approvingly. “But, now, here is the dispatch I want you to send. You see, like the other, it is in cipher. The government’s secrets have to be closely guarded.”
Jack took the message and filed it and then proceeded to raise the Iowa again.
Before long came a reply to his insistent calls.
“Here is the Iowa. What is it?”
Something peculiar about the sending struck Jack, but he went ahead.
“This is the Tropic Queen. I have a message from Colonel Minturn to Washington. It must be rushed through.”
“Very well, transmit,” came the answer; but once more the curious ending of the other wireless man struck him forcibly.
“I don’t believe that is the Iowa at all,” he muttered to himself. “I never heard a man-o’-war operator sending like that. It sounds more like—like—by hookey! I’ve got it. It’s that fellow on the Endymion,—the craft that Jarrold is so much interested in.”
Just then, winging through the air, came the short, sharp, powerful sending of the Iowa.
“Hullo, there, Tropic Queen, this is the Iowa. Who is that fellow butting in?”
“I don’t know,” Jack flashed back. “Re-tune your instruments so that he can’t crib this message I’m going to send you. Tune them to man-of-war pitch. From what I heard of his sending, his batteries are too weak to reach such high power.”
“All right,” was the brief reply.
The two instruments were then run up to a pitch which only the most powerful supply of “juice” could give them. Then came the test and everything was found to be working finely.
Jack at once rattled off the message. In it he noticed that the name Jarrold recurred, also the Endymion. Colonel Minturn stood close beside him and watched him with interest as Jack worked his key in crisp, snappy, expert fashion.
“You are a very good operator, my boy,” he said when Jack had flashed out good-by with the squealing, crackling spark. “I may have government work for you some day. Should you like it?”
“Oh, Colonel!” cried the boy, his face lighting up, “I’d rather work for Uncle Sam than for anyone else in the world.”
“Then some day you may have that opportunity. In the meantime I want you, without saying a word to anybody, to inform me of any suspicious moves on the part of this man Jarrold.”
“Why, is he—is he an enemy of Uncle Sam’s?” Jack ventured.
“He is probably the most dangerous rascal in existence,” was the staggering reply.
CHAPTER XI—WHAT SAM HEARD
Jack looked the astonishment he felt. While he had sensed something of sinister import about Jarrold right along, still he had never guessed the man could merit such a sweeping description of bad character.
“The most dangerous rascal in existence,” he repeated.
“Yes, I called him that and I mean it,” was the reply. “What he is doing on this boat, I don’t know. But I have a guess and am prepared for him.”
He drew from his hip pocket a wicked looking automatic.
“Is it as bad as that?” asked Jack.
“I don’t know. But, at any rate, I am prepared. Jarrold has been mixed up in desperate enterprises in a score of countries. He is a diplomatic free lance of the worst character. It was Jarrold who stole the documents relating to the Russian navy, which it cost that country so much time and trouble to recover before they found their way into the hands of another power.”
“And the young lady—his niece?”
“She has been implicated in most of his plots. They are a dangerous pair. You will do me and the government a great favor by keeping an eye on them. You will be able to do this, as I understand they are trying hard to establish communication with a yacht called the Endymion.”
“Yes; both the man and the girl appear very anxious to do that,” rejoined Jack.
“Jarrold has the stateroom next to mine. In my possession are documents that would be of immense value to a certain far eastern power that wishes the United States no good.”
“You think that Jarrold is after these?” asked Jack.
“It is the only supposition I can go upon. That cipher message from the government warned me to be careful of the man, as his errand had been surmised by the Secret Service men. They also found out about the Endymion, which fact I did not know before.”
“And he is, apparently, an American, too,” exclaimed Jack.
The colonel nodded.
“Yes, he is a westerner by birth, I believe, but that makes little difference to men of his type. The only country they know is the one that gives the biggest price for their rascalities.”
“He ought to be shot for trying to betray the country he owes his birth to,” said Jack hotly.
The colonel smiled and laid a hand on the excited lad’s shoulder.
“You feel about it as I do, lad,” he said. “But remember we have nothing to go upon as yet. Absolutely nothing.”
Jack agreed that this was so, and after some more conversation, the colonel left the wireless room, first warning the young operator that their talk must be held absolutely confidential.
Of course Jack promised this, and so did Sam. But both lads felt that they were playing parts in a big game, the nature of which was an absolute mystery so far.
“It’s like sitting on a keg of dynamite,” said Sam.
“Yes; I have a feeling that there is something electrical in the air,” said Jack, “besides wireless waves. It may break at any minute, too.”
“If it does, I hope we get a chance to help out the colonel.”
“Yes, he is a fine man, a splendid type of soldier. I don’t wonder the government chose him for this Panama errand.”
“It’s a mighty responsible job,” agreed Sam.
“And particularly when such a clever rascal as Jarrold, with unlimited power at his back, is hanging about.”
But then it was dinner time, and Sam, whom even the most engrossing conversation could not keep from his meals, hastened below. When he came back, he had an important look on his face.
“I stopped on deck for a breath of fresh air,” he said, “and stood out of the wind behind a big ventilator. Jarrold and his niece came along.”
“Didn’t they see you?”
“No; they were talking too earnestly; besides, the ventilator hid me, anyhow.”
“Did you hear what they said?”
“I couldn’t catch much of it.”
“Well, let’s hear what you were able to pick up.”
“Well, the man appeared to be urging something that the girl objected to. ‘I tell you it is too dangerous,’ I heard her say.
“Then the man, in a rough voice, told her she was a foolish woman and that he was going ‘to do it to-night at all costs.’
“‘You may ruin everything,’ she said, but he only laughed and said that if he failed this time, he would succeed later on, anyway.”
“Hum, that’s a mighty interesting scrap of conversation,” mused Jack, “I wonder what the old fox is up to now.”
“Maybe we’d better inform the colonel,” suggested Sam.
“Hardly. Not with the meager information we’ve got. He would only laugh at us. No, we’ll have to wait and see what the event will be. But depend upon it, there is something in the wind.”
Jack was right. What that something was, he was not to learn till later, but it was far more startling and was to involve him more deeply than he imagined.
CHAPTER XII—A SUDDEN ALARM
At midnight, while the Tropic Queen was plying ever southward through smooth seas and under a dark canopy of sky lit by countless stars, Jack left his key and, calling Sam, whose turn it was on watch, went below for his customary midnight “snack.” A sleepy-eyed steward served him in the big saloon, which looked empty and desolate with only one light in all its vastness.
Jack ate heartily and then prepared to go on deck again. He had reached the foot of the saloon stairs when a sudden sound made him pause.
It was the rustle of skirts. Jack drew back into the shadow which hung thickly over that part of the saloon. To his astonishment, for he thought that all the passengers—except a belated party in the smoking-room—were in bed, he saw that the figure which passed swiftly through the corridor beyond the staircase was that of Miss Jarrold.
She wore a white dress which showed ghost-like through the gloom, although the corridor was dimly lighted. But there was no mistaking her slender, graceful outlines and quick, panther-like walk.
Suddenly the conversation that Sam had repeated to him flashed across Jack’s mind. It had appeared to foreshadow some desperate attempt to gain whatever the pair had set their minds on. Almost beyond a doubt, these were the papers and plans relating to the Panama Canal. Jack knew that Colonel Minturn’s cabin was in the direction the girl was following.
Could it be possible that——
Suddenly a piercing shriek came, followed by cry after cry.
Jack’s heart stood still. His scalp tightened.
The cry was the most blood-chilling that can be heard at sea.
The cry was the most blood-chilling that can be heard at sea.
“Fire! Fire! Fire!”
Jack dashed down the passage. From every stateroom now, shouts of men and screams of women were coming. Warned by he knew not what instinct, he made for Colonel Minturn’s cabin.
It lay just around a corner of the passage. He had just gained it, when he saw a bulky figure, that of Jarrold, hurl itself against the door and go smashing through it. Jack rushed up.
Jarrold turned on him with a savage growl.
“Get away from here, boy. I’ll save Colonel Minturn. You go and warn the other passengers.”
But Jack made no move to go. Instead, he stepped into the cabin. In his bunk lay the colonel, apparently sleeping deeply. Jack shook him, but he did not move, only lay there, breathing heavily.
“This man has been drugged,” he exclaimed half aloud.
At the same instant he felt the hulking form of Jarrold fling itself at him.
“You infernal, interfering young spy,” he snarled. “Get out of here. Get back to your post. Send out an alarm of fire.”
He seized Jack with his big hands. The boy’s blood boiled. Big as Jarrold was, and powerful, too, Jack was, he thought, a match for him.
Jarrold aimed a fierce blow at him. Jack dodged it and parried it with one of his own. Then the two clinched. Jarrold’s powerful arms encompassed the boy, squeezing the breath out of him.
Outside the cabin, people in all stages of dress and undress were rushing about screaming and shouting. The whole ship was in pandemonium. Within the cabin, for Jarrold had closed the door when he followed Jack in, the two combatants, the boy and the man, fought in desperate silence for the mastery, while the man in the bunk lay with closed eyes, breathing heavily.
Back and forth they swayed till Jack suddenly wrenched himself loose. He delivered a powerful blow and stopped a bull-like rush from Jarrold. The fire, everything, was forgotten before his desire to overcome the man who had attacked him.
Jarrold was, as has been said, a bull of a man. Thick-necked, powerful and possessed of no little science, he could have torn Jack to pieces if he could have gripped him right. But Jack, once free of his clutches, was careful to avoid this.
Jack possessed no little of the science of the gymnasium, too. He fought coolly, taking every advantage of his skill. Again and again he dodged Jarrold’s mad rushes, and again and again he landed blows which seemed heavy enough to fell an ox.
But they did not appear to have any effect on Jarrold’s big frame. A mere grunt was the only sign that he had noticed them. Jack began to despair of handling his man after all.
In the struggle, furniture was smashed, Jarrold’s coat torn, and both combatants’ faces were cut and bruised. Gasping for breath, dizzy from the thundering shock of the few blows Jarrold had driven home like flesh and blood sledge hammers, Jack was about to give up, when suddenly he noticed that no one was facing him. Jarrold, breathing heavily, his face purple, lay stretched across a lounge as he had fallen.
A terrible thought flashed through Jack’s mind. Suppose he had killed him?
CHAPTER XIII—A DOSE OF SLEEPING POWDER
Jack rushed out into the hallway. It was not, as he had expected, smoke-filled, nor was there any odor of fire in the air. Somewhere he could hear the voices of officers shouting above the distant hub-bub in the saloon: “Keep your heads! There is no fire.”
Doctor Flynn, the ship’s surgeon, came hurrying by. Jack stopped him and explained what had occurred in Colonel Minturn’s cabin.
“We must send for help and carry them both out of danger at once,” he said.
“Danger? But there is no danger,” exclaimed the doctor.
“But the fire?” gasped the boy.
“There is none. It was either the overwrought nerves of a silly woman that started the panic, or else there was some malicious design underlying the whole thing.”
The thought of what he had seen as he stood in the shadow of the saloon stairway rushed across Jack’s mind: Miss Jarrold’s sudden appearance and then the scream of fire. Could it have been possible that this was the thing that Sam had overheard her and her uncle debating? That, taking advantage of the panic they knew would be caused by such an alarm in the dead of night, Jarrold had schemed a way to enter Colonel Minturn’s cabin?
“Will you come into Colonel Minturn’s cabin with me at once, doctor?” asked Jack.
“Certainly, my boy. But,” and the doctor stared at him in amazement, “what has happened to you? Your face is bruised and marked. Have you been fighting?”
“A little bit,” said Jack grimly.
“With whom?”
“With a man I believe to be a consummate scoundrel. By the merest accident on earth, I happened along here just in time to frustrate what I believe to be a plot against Colonel Minturn.”
All this Jack explained hastily as they retraced their way down the corridor to Colonel Minturn’s cabin. The panic had died down, and the passengers, reassured now, were making their divers ways back to their cabins. Some tried to turn the whole matter into a joke. Others looked sheepish over the panic-stricken way in which they had behaved.
But when the two entered the colonel’s cabin a surprise awaited them.
Jarrold was not there.
Jack rubbed his mental eyes. He could have sworn he had left the man lying across the lounge, to all appearances stunned. Now, in the brief interval that the boy had been out of the cabin, the man had gone.
“He must have been playing ’possum,” said the surgeon, when Jack had briefly explained the circumstances; “but now let us see to Colonel Minturn.”
The doctor bent over the officer’s form as it lay in the bunk. The colonel was breathing heavily, his pulse was slow, his face gray.
“Run to my cabin for my medicine bag,” ordered the doctor to Jack. “You will find it on my lounge. Hurry back.”
Jack waited to ask no questions but sped off. The corridors were still choked with passengers discussing the fire scare. Most of them appeared to think it had been a grim and criminal form of joke on somebody’s part. There was talk of offering a reward for the discovery of the culprit.
But Jack, knowing what he did, placed, as we know, a more sinister construction on the midnight alarm. He was soon back with the doctor’s bag. The surgeon took out of it a small syringe and injected some sort of solution into the unconscious man’s arm.
“What is the matter with him, sir, do you think?” ventured Jack, as the doctor, his hand on Minturn’s pulse, sat by the side of the bunk.
“He has been drugged. That much is plain. Although what the agency was, I cannot guess,” was the rejoinder.
A small glass article lying on the floor caught Jack’s eye. It was an atomizer, such as are used for perfumes. But this was filled with a gray powder. He pressed the rubber bulb and an impalpable cloud of the powder was sprayed into the air. He immediately felt sick and dizzy.
“Look here, sir, what do you make of this?” he cried excitedly, handing it to the doctor. “I found it on the floor. It must have dropped from Jarrold’s pocket while we were struggling. I’m sure that that powder in it is some sort of drug. When I sprayed it out, it made me feel weak and faint.”
The doctor took the glass vessel, unscrewed the top and shook out a small quantity of the powder on his palm.
“This is an important discovery, indeed,” he exclaimed. “It is a sleeping powder used by a certain South African tribe. A sufficient quantity sprayed into the atmosphere would send anyone into a coma. It is not poisonous, merely sleep producing.”
“Then you think that some of it was sprayed into this room, possibly through the transom, by Jarrold before——”
“We’ll leave Mr. Jarrold’s name out of this for the present,” said the doctor shortly. “Remember, we have no proof against him. For all you know, and for all that appears, he broke in here to try to save the colonel when the cry of fire occurred.”
“But he attacked me,” protested Jack.
“His answer to that would be that you were not at your post, where you should have been.”
Jack colored. This was true. Jarrold had indeed a rejoinder to everything he might say against the man. When it came to a point, the lad had plenty of suspicions and theories, but absolutely no proofs to offer. He couldn’t even state positively that the atomizer full of the sleeping powder was Jarrold’s.
The colonel moved uneasily and opened his eyes. In a few moments he was able to talk.
“Why, what has happened?” he asked drowsily, looking first at the doctor and then at Jack.
“First, will you tell us the last thing you recollect, Colonel?”
“Most assuredly. I came to bed early. Before turning in, I examined certain papers of mine and found they were all in perfect order. This done, I lay down with a book. Suddenly I felt unaccountably drowsy, and—and that’s all. But what has occurred in the meantime? I can tell by your presence in the cabin that something out of the ordinary is up.”
“Will you first oblige me by making sure your papers are safe?” asked the doctor.
“Certainly; they are in this box under my pillow. Ah yes, everything is in perfect order. As you see, this is a combination lock. I could tell in an instant if it had been tampered with.”
“Then, Colonel, I think that you should thank this young man here for saving you from a theft that might have cost you dearly,” said the doctor, indicating Jack.
CHAPTER XIV—THE WINKING EYE
“I—I must confess I don’t understand,” said the colonel, looking bewilderedly from one to the other of his two companions.
“Then let me enlighten you.” And, supplemented from time to time by Jack, the doctor gave a concise account of the incidents leading up to the discovery of Jarrold breaking into the colonel’s cabin.
The officer could hardly believe his ears.
“Of course I have suspected Jarrold all along, and cannot be too grateful to this young man for his vigilance,” he said; “but the diabolical ingenuity of the man is beyond me.”
“He ought to be in irons at this minute,” asserted the doctor, “but so far as I can see, he has covered up his tracks so cleverly that we have nothing upon which to base a complaint against him.”
“At the present time, no, unfortunately,” said the colonel reluctantly. “And if it had not been for Mr. Ready, here, the whole plot might have proved a complete success.”
“I think it is reasonably certain that when you awakened, which might not have been till late to-morrow morning, you would have found your papers gone,” said the doctor.
“But in that case, I should have instantly suspected Jarrold,” was the reply. “And exercising my authority as an officer of the United States army, I could have had him detained under suspicion while his baggage and his person were searched.”
“I am afraid that that would have been very much like looking for a needle in a haystack,” said Dr. Flynn. “A rascal as clever as he is would have found some way to dispose of the papers, where it would be highly improbable that they could be found.”
“You are right,” agreed Colonel Minturn. “Well, gentlemen, I think that for the sake of all concerned, we had better keep this secret among us three and await developments.”
“But Jarrold knows that Ready suspects him,” objected the doctor.
“Oh, well, for that very reason, he won’t do any talking,” was the colonel’s response. “We must watch and wait, and the next time catch him red-handed.”
“Then you think he will make another attempt?” asked Jack.
“I have not the slightest doubt of it. Whatever nation is paying him, it has set a high price on the successful issue of his venture; and he will stop at nothing to put it through, if I have any knowledge of the man,” was the response.
“I think the best thing we can all do now is to turn in,” said Dr. Flynn.
This was generally agreed and good-nights were said; but before Jack sought his cabin, he visited the doctor’s room, where his face was attended to so as to leave hardly any marks of his encounter with Jarrold.
The latter did not appear the next day, but his niece, radiant and smiling, was at breakfast as if nothing had occurred. Jack looked at her wonderingly. He had not the slightest doubt that her part in the plot had been the cry of “Fire”; but she appeared as carefree and debonair as if she had nothing more important on her mind than making a charming appearance.
Jack could not help grinning to himself when Jarrold did not come down.
“I guess I gave him something to think about,” he remarked with a chuckle to Sam, as the two discussed the subject.
Jarrold appeared the next day. A dark mark under his left eye was the only visible sign of the encounter in Colonel Minturn’s cabin. He studiously avoided the other passengers, however, and spent most of his time pacing the deck with his niece.
The weather was steadily growing warmer now. Porpoises appeared in rolling, leaping schools, and flying fish were stirred up in whole coveys by the ship’s bow. The officers donned white uniforms, as did our wireless boys, and everything indicated that the steamer was entering the tropics.
It was Jack’s first voyage into such regions, and both he and Sam thrilled with the anticipation of seeing the new sights and people. But all the time, Jack was aware that under their feet was a smoldering volcano. Covered for a time, and blanketed, it was still smoldering, of that he was certain. He caught himself wondering uneasily what form the next attempt would take.
It was his watch one night and he was turning over these things in his mind as the ship plowed steadily onward, when, on going to the door of his cabin for a breath of fresh air, he was surprised to see, not far off, the green starboard and white mast headlights of what, from the distance between the lights on her fore and main masts, appeared to be a fair-sized steamer. She was steaming in the same direction as the Tropic Queen and going quite as fast.
Now, under ordinary circumstances, the sight of another craft on the same course would not have astonished one. But nowadays, when almost every ship is equipped with wireless, the operators of most vessels know precisely what craft are in their vicinity. Even in the case where ships are slow, and not equipped with radio apparatus, they usually signal, by day or night signals, to craft which have wireless, and ask to be reported. So that the sight of this stranger, moving along parallel with the Tropic Queen, gave Jack what was not exactly a thrill, but a sensation of vague uneasiness.
All at once, on her bridge, a red light began to flash. Like a blood-shot eye it winked through the dark night.
“By Jove, signals!” exclaimed Jack.
He got his signal code book and was able to read off, by his knowledge of Morse, the letters and words the strange craft was sending, as distinctly as if they had been printed. But they simply formed a meaningless jumble.
“It’s a code message to someone on board this ship,” muttered Jack to himself, as the crimson eye ceased to wink.
As it stopped transmitting its untranslatable—except to one who held the key—message through the darkness, the strange ship began to drop back under reduced speed. Whatever its mission, it had been accomplished. That much was plain. Jack wished that the jumble of words before him was as clear.
He sat there racking his brains over the matter till almost midnight, when Sam relieved him. The assistant operator looked at the message, over which Jack was knitting his brows, with astonishment.
“What in the world is that?” he asked.
“I wish I knew,” was Jack’s enigmatic reply, “but there’s one man on board this ship who does, and I’m inclined to think that his name is James Jarrold.”
CHAPTER XV—SECRET SIGNALS AT DAWN
The next morning both Jack and Sam were on the qui vive for a sight of the mysterious steamer of the night. But not even a smudge on the horizon gave indication of what had become of her. When Jack went down to breakfast, he met First Officer Metcalf and spoke to him of the strange signals.
“Yes; Muller, the third officer, who had the bridge last night, reported them to me this morning,” was the reply. “He jotted them down as they were flashed, but we can’t make head nor tail of them.”
“Nor can I,” confessed Jack. “It was a code message of some sort.”
“Some would-be funny chump having a joke at our expense, I reckon,” was the way that Mr. Metcalf, who, of course, knew nothing of the suspected machinations of Jarrold, dismissed the subject.
A lingering suspicion was in Jack’s mind that, by some queer chance, the message might have been for Colonel Minturn, so after the morning meal he drew him aside. But when shown the message, Colonel Minturn declared that, although the government used several codes, the one in question was not one of them.
“Then it was for Jarrold,” declared Jack positively, for, knowing what he did, he could not share Mr. Metcalf’s “joker” theory.
“I believe you are right,” responded Colonel Minturn, stroking his mustache thoughtfully. “Jove, this thing is taking some strange turns!”
Their eyes strayed to where Jarrold, sprawled out in a deck chair, was seemingly absorbed in a book. But Jack could have sworn that over the top of it he was covertly watching them.
“It is evident, to my way of thinking,” Jack ventured, “that the strange craft was the Endymion, and that, despairing of getting a wireless to Jarrold, or else on account of a break-down in their wireless, they decided to chance that method of signaling him.”
“That certainly appears plausible,” said Colonel Minturn. “The Endymion, when pressed, can make twenty-five miles an hour. Our speed is about sixteen. Therefore, it would be an easy matter for her to overhaul us at night, slip away in the daytime, and sneak back at night once more.”
“I think it would be a good plan to keep a sharp look-out to-night,” said Jack. “I’ve a notion that there may be something in the wind.”
“I agree with you,” was the colonel’s rejoinder. “Although, if it comes down to that, there’s no reason why Jarrold shouldn’t, if he wishes to, exchange messages with any ship. At least, I know of no way of stopping him.”
“That’s just the trouble, sir,” said Jack, turning to go. “He’s too much of a fox to put himself into a position where we can get anything definite on him.”
The day passed uneventfully and the first part of the night was the usual unbroken routine. Jack spoke with two or three vessels in the West Indian and South American trade. But nothing unusual occurred to break the monotony. Midnight found him on the watch. When Sam, as much interested in the strange developments as was Jack, came to relieve him at the wireless key, Jack decided to forego his sleep and do some investigating.
Putting on a pair of light canvas shoes with rubber soles, Jack took up a position on the main deck as soon as the ship was wrapped in sleep, except for the watch and the officer who paced the bridge unceasingly under the blazing tropic stars. His vigil was not rewarded till some time before dawn, when, out of the blackness to port, came the sudden blinking of a scarlet disk, like the leering wink of an ensanguined eye.
It came so suddenly and startlingly that Jack knew that the stranger, the one he was now convinced was the Endymion, had crept up without lights, under cover of darkness. There came a few dots and dashes, indicated by the length of the flash of the red light. Then it ceased.
Then it began again, flashing like a night heliograph.
“By Jove! Somebody answered them from this ship!” exclaimed Jack in high excitement.
But the decks were bare. Not a soul was to be seen. Had it been anyone above, Sam was on the lookout there and would have notified Jack at once.
Suddenly a thought flashed across the boy. A thought that sent him, with a swift, noiseless stride, to the rail. He peered overside. It had just occurred to him that Jarrold’s cabin was an outside one on the port side of the Tropic Queen, which presented that flank to the stranger.
As he gained the side and peered over, he gave vent to what was almost a shout of triumph. He had solved part of the riddle at any rate. After a pause in the signaling from the stranger, there had come from the side of the Tropic Queen a sudden flash of red light. It was reflected ruddily on the smooth water as it gleamed across the sea.
“So that’s it, eh, Mr. Jarrold!” cried Jack in a low undertone. “You’ve got some sort of a flash lantern rigged in your stateroom, connected with the electric light socket, likely, and you’re having a nice little talk with your friends over yonder.”
All at once he slapped his thigh as a thought struck him. He knew that a common switch controlled the lights in each separate corridor of the ship. Thus, the four cabins in the section that Jarrold occupied, while they each had their individual light switches, were also controlled by a switch in the main corridor.
This was so that, in case of accident, the electricians could work more conveniently.
“I don’t know what the skipper would say to this,” exclaimed Jack, “but here goes.”
He darted below and soon reached the point in the main port corridor from which the passage on which the four cabins in Jarrold’s section opened. He fumbled for the switch in the half darkness. First, though, he had looked to see that no other lights were shining in that section except the one he was sure was being used in Jarrold’s room.
Click! The switch was turned.
“Now we’ll see,” exclaimed Jack to himself.
He hastened back on deck. Through the night, off to the port the strange craft was signaling frantically. Jack chuckled.
“Spiked your guns, Mister Jarrold,” he laughed, as the signaling continued. Plainly on the other ship they could not understand why they no longer got flashed replies from Jarrold’s room.
“Oh, I’ll bet the air is blue below,” chuckled Jack, delighted at the success of his plan. “Now I’ll just watch till they get sick of waiting for Mr. Jarrold, and then go below and put that switch on again.”
For half an hour the vain red flashes came out of the night and then they ceased.
“I guess they’ve sneaked off for fear daylight would discover them,” said Jack. “Now to switch the light on again, and then for a snooze. I think I’ve earned it.”
CHAPTER XVI—S. O. S.
Dawn showed a smudge of black smoke on the far horizon which might or might not have been the mysterious visitant of the night. At any rate, by noon something occurred which quite put out of Jack’s mind, and those of the ship’s officers, who were considerably exercised over the midnight signals, all thoughts of the secretive craft.
To Jack, seated at his instruments, there had suddenly come a sharp call:
“S.O.S.—S.O.S.—S.O.S.”
Coming as it did, like a bolt from the blue, the urgent call thrilled the young operator. He galvanized into action instantly and sent Sam scurrying to the bridge with word that the most urgent call that can assail a wireless man’s ears had just come to him.
It was faint and far away, but that very fact made it evident to Jack’s experienced mind that whoever was sending the message, was in dire straits and running out of current.
He pressed his key and sent thundering out with all the volleying force of his powerful dynamos, an answer.
“What ship are you?” he demanded.
The answer that came back almost knocked him out of his chair.
“The airship Adventurer, from New Orleans to Havana. We are on the surface of the water and sinking rapidly.”
“Your position, quick!” demanded Jack.
Back through space, in a slowly dying wireless voice, came the latitude and longitude of the luckless craft.
“You are on our course. Stand by and we will pick you up,” said Jack, whom a rapid glance at the wall map had shown that, roughly, the sinking air-craft was not more than twenty miles to the southwest of the Tropic Queen’s position.
“What has happened?” asked Jack.
“No time explain details. Hurry! Hurry!——”
Jack tried to get the unseen operator once more, but a silence that was far more eloquent than words alone greeted his efforts. He turned to see the captain, in his white uniform and gold-laced cap, standing behind him.
“What is this S.O.S., Ready?” he demanded. “What craft is in distress?”
“An airship, sir. The Adventurer, bound from New Orleans for Havana, Cuba.”
“By Neptune! I recall now reading that two aviators were going to make such a foolhardy attempt.”
“What kind of an air-craft is she, sir? Do you recall?”
“Why, one of those flying-boats, as they are called, I believe.”
“A big aëroplane fitted with a boat’s hull?”
“That’s the idea. But did they give you their position?”
Jack handed over the figures.
“Here they are, sir. But the current from the drifting airship was so weak that I cannot be absolutely certain as to their accuracy.”
“Well, we’ll have to take them for what they are worth,” said the captain, scanning them.
“Roughly, they are on our course, sir,” ventured Jack.
“Yes, we can almost make a landfall on them if you got the positions right. I’ll have full speed ahead signaled. Poor fellows, their plight must be desperate!”
He hastened off to give the necessary orders, while Jack went back to his instruments; but, although he tried with all his might to get another whisper, he could hear nothing.
Either the wrecked airship had gone to the bottom, or else, water having reached her storage batteries, she could no longer send out word.
But Jack raised another ship,—the City of Mexico of the Vera Cruz line.
“What’s biting you?” the flippant operator inquired.
“Just got word that a wrecked airship is floating about on the sea,” flashed back Jack, and gave the latitude and longitude.
“Why, we’ll be there almost as soon as you,” was the reply.
“All right, let’s make it a race,” called Jack. “It is one for a good cause.”
“Surest thing you know. See you later.”
The City of Mexico’s wireless man cut off. The third officer came into the wireless room.
“Ready, the old man wants you to make out a bulletin for the passengers. They’ll go wild over this.”
Jack quickly typed off a bulletin.
“Shortly before noon, in communication with wrecked and drifting flying-boat Adventurer. She is about twenty miles to the Southwest. We are hurrying at top speed to her assistance and should be there in a little over an hour’s time.
“Ready, Chief Operator, S. S. Tropic Queen.”
The excitement that followed the posting of this notice on the bulletin board at the head of the saloon stairs may be imagined by those who have passed long, dreamy, uneventful days at sea, when even the sight of a distant sail provides all manner of topics of conversation.
But now they were steaming at top speed toward the hulk of a flying-boat—that is, provided she was still on the surface. The ship buzzed and hummed with vibrant excitement. Passengers lined the rails, and some of the more excitable even tried to swarm into the rigging, from which exalted positions they were swiftly ejected.
Black smoke poured from the Tropic Queen’s funnels, and the speed of her accelerated engines caused a humming vibration to run through her frame like the twanging of a taut fiddle string. On the bridge, white-uniformed officers stood, with glasses in hand, all on the alert to catch the first black speck on the sparkling sea which might reveal the location of the wrecked air adventurers.
Forward, on the forepeak and in the crow’s nest, lookouts had been doubled. And excitement was added to the race to the rescue when it became known that the City of Mexico was speeding from the southward on the same errand of mercy.
CHAPTER XVII—A DERELICT OF THE SKIES
“What a wonderful thing wireless is!” remarked Sam, as the two young operators stood gazing from the upper deck where their “coop” was perched.
“Yes, if that flying-boat hadn’t carried even the small, weak equipment she has, it would have been all off with them,” agreed Jack; “that is, if they are not at the bottom now.”
“Oh, I hope not!” cried Sam.
“Same here. But still, the sudden way that message cut off looked odd.”
The boys said little more, but kept their attention concentrated, waiting for the first sharp, quick cry that would announce that the derelict of the skies had been sighted. It was nerve-racking, the waiting for that shout.
It seemed that hours had passed, when suddenly there came a sharp bark from the bows. A keen-eyed salt stationed there had seen something even before the officers on the bridge had sighted it through their binoculars.
“What is it, my man?” hailed Captain McDonald through a speaking trumpet.
“Can’t just make out, sir. It might be a big whale, but it looks to me like a boat.”
The officers scrutinized the object pointed out through their glasses. It lay some miles from the ship, spread out darkly on the blue, gently-heaving sea.
“Can you see any human beings on board it?” demanded Captain McDonald anxiously of Mr. Metcalf.
“No, sir, I—yes, I do, too. One man. He is standing up, waving.”
“Give me the glasses, Metcalf.”
The captain took the binoculars.
“Yes, you’re right; there’s a man on board. But how long he will keep afloat, I don’t know. Lucky the sea is calm.”
“You may well say that, sir. In my opinion, whatever he is standing on is due to sink before long.”
“My opinion, too. But hullo, what is that coming up over the horizon there?”
“That smoke, sir? That must be the City of Mexico.”
“Yes, you’re right, it is. I can see her masts now. She’s coming up fast.”
“We don’t want to let her beat us, sir.”
“No, indeed; signal below for more speed.”
Mr. Metcalf jerked the engine-room telegraph. A quickened impulse of the steel hull followed. Inky smoke rolled in volumes from the two funnels of the big ship. Never had she gone faster. Under the forced draught in the sweating stokeholds below, the firemen toiled desperately. Steam screeched from the ’scape pipes in a constant roar, testifying to the big head of power being carried in the ship’s boilers.
It was a race to thrill the most critical, and a contest of speed, too, which had, as its goal, a human life; for, from the frantic signals now being made by the man on the drifting flying-boat, it was plain that he did not expect to keep above the water much longer.
The Mexico’s wireless man was signaling Jack.
“Hit it up, you Tropic Queen.”
“We’re doing nicely, thank you,” came back Jack. “What’s the matter with your old sea-going smoke wagon?”
In this way the messages between the two on-rushing steamships were flashed back and forth above the sparkling sea, while the drama of the race for a life was going forward.
And now the passengers had caught sight of the tiny object adrift on the vast ocean. A hoarse cheer ascended to the boat decks, in which the shrill voices of women mingled. They were shouting encouragement and advice to the castaway of the sky.
He replied by waving. The speed of the ship suddenly was reduced. Under Quartermaster Schultz a boat crew was made up. Jack begged to be allowed to be one of them and, to his delight, the captain told him to cut along.
Sam, although deeply disappointed at being left behind, nevertheless cheered with the rest as the boat was lowered and struck the water with a splash. Then, as the steamer’s propellers ground in reverse to check her way, it dashed off toward the stricken flying-boat.
The craft could be seen quite plainly now—a dainty affair with golden, shimmering wings supporting a boat-like structure amidships. Jack was familiar with the general construction of flying-boats, the very latest type of aëroplane, from pictures he had seen in magazines, but he had never seen a real one before. He marveled that so frail looking a craft could have made her way so far out to sea.
But as they neared the stricken airship, shouting words of encouragement to her lone occupant, a startling thing happened. Simultaneously a groan burst from the throats of the boat crew.
The flying-boat vanished from the surface of the sea as if she had been a smudge wiped off a slate with a sponge.
CHAPTER XVIII—A LEAP FOR A LIFE
Had the lone navigator of the craft perished when she gave the last swift and decisive plunge to the bottom? A groan that went up from the decks of the Tropic Queen, which had steamed quite close, seemed to indicate that the enthralled onlookers thought so.
But suddenly Jack gave a shout:
“There he is! Over there! Pull for your lives, men!”
The brawny arms of the oarsmen needed no encouragement. Every man bent to his work till the stout ash sweeps curved and their backs cracked.
The boat flew across the water to a tiny, bobbing, black dot, the head of the castaway aviator. As they drew closer, they could see his face turned toward them imploringly. He was a young man, black-haired and apparently good-looking, although they did not pay much attention to his appearance just then.
As they drew alongside, his strength suddenly seemed to give out after the brave struggle he had made, and he disappeared under the water. Even as he did so, a figure leaped from the boat in a long, clean dive. When Jack, for it was the young wireless man who had made the daring leap, reappeared, he held in his arms the body of the half-drowned man.