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CHAPTER XXXV – JARROLD GETS FRANTIC

Jack turned to find the colonel bending over him. Despite the military man’s firm effort at self-control, his face was gray.

“Is there any hope?” he asked.

Jack shook his head.

“They’ve stolen a march on us, Colonel,” he said. “The yacht had a clean bill of health, whether forged or not, I don’t know. At any rate, her clearance papers must have been O. K. or she could not have sailed.”

“Probably forged,” said the colonel. “I must communicate with Washington at once.”

“I can probably relay a message through,” said Jack. “What do you want to say?”

“I will go to my cabin and write it in code,” was the reply, and with stooping shoulders the stricken colonel left the wireless room. After a short time he was back again with his code message. In the meantime, Sam and De Garros, under Jack’s instructions, had notified the ship’s officers, who were all ashore, of the looting of the safe, and an important conference, which Colonel Minturn joined, was held in Captain McDonald’s cabin.

An examination by the purser showed that nothing except the papers, which had been in an inner drawer, had been taken, so that there was no object in alarming the passengers by notifying them of the robbery. The money and valuables were temporarily removed to another and older safe, and a screen placed about the damaged one to shield it from prying eyes.

Jack was summoned to the cabin to give his version of the affair and received warm commendation for the way he had acted. But the boy felt somehow – however causelessly – that he might have done more to prevent the robbery and recover the papers. However, it was too late then.

He succeeded at last in getting a message through to the national capital, relaying to the immense radio station at Arlington. That message borne over the seas, caused more excitement in Washington than had any piece of news received there for many days. Cabinet officers were summoned for an extraordinary conference and every wire and tentacle of the secret service was set in motion.

Scout cruisers stationed off Mexico were ordered to scour the seas for the Endymion and capture Jarrold if they had to sink his yacht. The administration’s message to Colonel Minturn was in code, but Jack guessed that it was a sharp reprimand couched in no very gentle terms. Uncle Sam is not harsh with his servants, but he does not tolerate mistakes, even though innocent and unavoidable.

The Tropic Queen sailed early next morning while the naval wireless was still sending the far-flung message, “Find the Endymion and capture the man Jarrold.” That simple message from Jack, tapped out by his agile finger-tips, had set the machinery of the war and navy departments buzzing as nothing short of a declaration of war could have done.

The possession of the complete plans of the fortification of the Panama Canal by Jarrold, meant only one thing. They would speedily pass into the hands of the foreign power of which he was agent. This meant that the power in question would have complete, triumphant knowledge of the most carefully guarded secrets of the mighty nation that built the great canal.

It would be necessary to squander money and time on remodeling the whole system of defense unless the Endymion could be found. That was the burden of the song the naval wireless men were flinging backward and forward with flaming keys that crackled and flared angrily.

“Find the Endymion! If she is on the Seven Seas, find her.”

Over those who knew the secret agony that the army officer was suffering hung a heavy gloom, as the Tropic Queen ploughed her way seaward, bound for Santa Marta on the coast of Colombia. Colonel Minturn kept to his room, nursing his anxiety.

From time to time the naval wireless boomed messages in the secret code into Jack’s ears and they were promptly transmitted below. But the colonel sent out no replies. All that he could say had been said in that first radiogram that had set official Washington a-buzz.

And in the meantime, on board the Endymion, what was happening? Speeding as if from a deadly plague, she was driven at top speed across the Caribbean. Jarrold, his face gray and lined, and almost as anxious-looking as the visage of Colonel Minturn, paced the deck and the bridge, calling always for speed and more speed. His niece, pale-faced and nerve-racked, watched him anxiously.

Cummings, catching the naval messages that volleyed through the air, told of the hunt that was up; of the naval prows ploughing the tropic seas in a systematic hunt for the grayhound-like yacht that was fleeing like a criminal across the sea wastes.

Jarrold, under the strain, grew dangerous to approach. He kept shouting and signaling for speed and ever more speed. The engineer appealed to him in vain. It was dangerous. The boilers could carry no more steam. Already the ship was a-quiver with their imprisoned power.

But Jarrold had only one reply:

“More speed, I say, more speed!”

On the evening of the second day of this mad race, a murmur began to run through the ship: A rumor that Jarrold was a criminal. That he was fleeing from justice. That he would blow the ship up with every soul on board rather than be captured.

The grimy crew of the stokehold, the “black watch,” refused to face the trembling boilers any longer. They feared that at any moment the steel plates would yield under the terrific pressure and annihilate them and the ship. The chief engineer, unable to keep them at their work, even at the pistol’s point, sought Jarrold, while the stokers spread a mutinous spirit throughout the yacht.

Jarrold was bending over a chart in the pilot house when the engineer found him.

“You are crawling like a snail,” he snarled; “more speed.”

“The men have quit,” said the engineer quietly to the half-crazed man. “They are afraid to work below. The boilers may burst any moment.”

“I don’t care about that. We must reach the coast before to-morrow morning. It must be done. My life hangs on it.”

“I can’t help that. The men won’t work,” protested the engineer; “they’ve thrown down their shovels and gone forward. I’d advise you to give in to them; they are in a dangerous mood.”

Jarrold sprang to his feet with a snarl. He reached into a drawer and drew out a magazine revolver.

“The mutinous dogs! I’ll drive them back to their fires with this,” he rasped out, rushing from the bridge.

“Don’t do anything rash,” implored the engineer, who knew how things stood. “The rest of the crew are with them and we’ll have a general mutiny on our hands if you precipitate trouble.”

The only answer was a roar of rage from the hunted man, about whom Uncle Sam was weaving a fine-meshed wireless net.

He swung down the steps from the bridge to the main deck with the agility of an ape. The captain, who also knew how matters stood, turned to the engineer and the mate.

“You fellows better get your guns,” he said; “there’s trouble coming now.”

Suddenly the slender, graceful form of Jarrold’s niece appeared on the bridge.

“Oh, what is it? What is the matter?” she implored.

“It’s nothing, Miss Jarrold,” began the captain, in a tone intended to pacify the half-hysterical girl. “You see – ”

The sharp crack of a pistol shot cut him short. Following the shot, came a riot of savage cries and shouts.

The captain wasted no more words but, followed by his officers, all armed with revolvers, ran forward.

“That madman has spilled the fat now,” he cried, as they rushed toward the forecastle. The sounds proceeding from it resembled the uproar from a den of wild beasts.

CHAPTER XXXVI – ADRIFT

Cummings, like the rank coward that he was, had run for his cabin just behind the pilot house when the inferno broke loose. He was cowering in it with ashen cheeks when Miss Jarrold appeared in the doorway.

“Go away! Go away!” screamed Ralph, in an agony of fright. “The crew has mutinied. They’ll kill us all. Oh, dear!”

“You coward!” said the girl, with flashing eyes, drawing her figure up to its full height. “Have you got a pistol?”

“Yes, there’s one in the drawer there,” stuttered Ralph.

With cool, firm hands, the girl took out the weapon.

“What are you going to do?” mewed Ralph fearfully.

“Help my uncle. You know what danger is on his track. Those men must go back to the furnaces.”

“Oh, we’ll all be killed,” repeated Ralph tremulously; “or, if we’re not killed, we’ll be caught by a war ship. The air is full of messages about us. Scout cruisers from Vera Cruz, and war craft from other places are closing in all around us.”

The girl bit her lip and turned a trifle pale.

“What are they saying?” she demanded.

“I can’t tell. The messages are all in code, but I can catch the name of this yacht all the time.”

The bulky figure of the captain suddenly appeared. The girl looked at him inquiringly. There was an expression on his bluff face that she could not fathom.

“Miss Jarrold, I have some unpleasant news for you,” he said.

“Well, Captain, what is it?” she demanded haughtily.

The big seaman shifted from foot to foot uneasily.

“Your uncle has shot a fireman up in the forecastle,” he said. “Oh, don’t be alarmed; not dangerously, but the men are ugly. Your uncle, too, has confessed to me that there’s a whole lot that is crooked about this cruise and I don’t like it. The United States cruisers are after us, he says.”

The girl bowed her head.

“So I believe. What of it? We have chartered this vessel and it is your duty to obey orders.”

“I beg your pardon, Miss, that’s what I was coming to. It’s my duty to my owners not to get their craft in a position where it can be confiscated by the government. That is what will happen if we keep on running away. The situation amounts to this. The men have got your uncle captured and tied. They say they won’t work the ship as long as he is on board unless he is made a prisoner.”

The girl tapped her foot impatiently.

“Is that all the authority you have over them? Why don’t you drive them to their posts?”

“Because I don’t intend to, Miss. This cruise ain’t regular; and I want this fellow here to send out a wireless message to the nearest battleship telling her our bearings and saying that we’ll give up Mr. Jarrold.”

“And if he refuses to accept?”

“We’ll have to provision a boat and turn him loose in it. It’s in the regular steamer lane here and he won’t suffer much inconvenience. Somebody’s bound to pick him up, and, anyhow, there are islands not far off.”

The mate and the engineer appeared with Jarrold at this juncture. His hands were bound and his expression of rage was more like that of a wild beast than a man.

“I’ve already told Mr. Jarrold the men’s terms and mine, Miss,” said the captain. “Mr. Jarrold, sir, which is it to be?”

Jarrold looked like a trapped wolf. He glared at his niece and at his captors.

“You see, I can’t lose my ship just because you’ve done something that seems to have stirred up the whole administration,” said the captain diplomatically. “Personally, if you want to get away, I’d take to the boat. I can cook up a story about you and the young lady escaping one dark night, when we reach port.”

Jarrold raged silently. The girl, white-lipped, erect and defiant, merely said: “Go on, please.”

“You see we can’t hope to get away. Every port we can touch at has a wireless plant of some sort. By this time the whole coast of the two Americas is on the lookout for us. And we can’t keep on going without coal, and because of the crazy way we’ve been making steam, the bunkers are pretty nigh empty.”

Jarrold nodded bitterly. The truth of the captain’s arguments appeared to strike home on even his stubborn mind.

“You’ll pledge your word to do no talking?” he said.

“Not a word, sir, and I’ll answer for my officers, too.”

“But the sailors?”

“Oh, they’ll talk, but nobody believes a sailor’s yarns, anyhow. I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but it’s clear that Uncle Sam wants you mighty bad. However, that’s none of my business. My job is to save my ship from confiscation or being blowed up. So is it to be surrender by wireless or the boat?”

Jarrold glanced at his niece. She came to his side and stood there proudly.

“Let it be the boat,” she said; and Jarrold nodded his head in silent assent. He seemed crushed and broken by the way in which fate had turned against him in the very hour of his triumph.

CHAPTER XXXVII – THE IRONY OF FATE

The Tropic Queen moved majestically through a sapphire sea. It was a perfect tropic night. A dream mist, like a scarf of shimmering, spangled vapor lay over the water. Above, the great, soft stars of the equatorial regions beamed from a sky like blue-black velvet. High above the main mast, like a great lamp, hung the full moon.

Disaster, danger and death seemed miles away, a contingency too remote to be considered. Yet they were close at hand, far closer than any of the sleeping passengers dreamed.

The bells chimed the hours and half hours as they slipped by to the steady threshing of the propeller, and the wake of the big ship spread fan-like from her stern in a milky stream that flashed with luminous phosphorescence.

Suddenly, from the lookout in the crow’s nest came a shout sharp and clear.

“Something dead ahead, sir,” was the reply to the inquiring hail from the bridge.

“Can you make it out?”

“Not yet, sir. It’s two points on the starboard bow.”

From the bridge night-glasses were leveled, but the eyes in the crow’s nest made out the nature of the drifting object on the moonlit sea first.

“It’s a boat, sir.”

“A boat?”

“Aye, aye, sir. Looks like a ship’s boat.”

“Anybody aboard?”

“Can’t just make out yet, sir.”

And then a minute later:

“Yes, sir. I see somebody standing up and waving. It’s – it’s a woman, sir.”

“Jove,” exclaimed Mr. Metcalf, who had the watch. “Schultz, call the captain. Tell him there’s a boat with a woman castaway on board ahead of us.”

“Aye, aye,” cried the old quartermaster, and hurried off on the errand, leaving the wheel to his mate; for on such a night the ship could be steered almost by a boy.

The captain hastened to the bridge in his pajamas and bath-robe.

“A boat, eh, Metcalf?” he said.

“Yes, sir. A ship’s boat, by the looks of her.”

“Order the engines slowed down. Schultz, get the after cutter ready for clearing away.”

The old quartermaster’s whistle sang out shrilly, and the watch jumped aft, alert for anything that was in the wind. Like magic, word had flown among the crew of the discovery of the tiny derelict.

“The land’s not more than two hundred miles off,” said Metcalf. “It’s possible they’ve drifted out to sea.”

“Most probably that is it, unless some disaster has overtaken a ship. At any rate, it couldn’t have come from storm, for we haven’t had any weather to speak of for days.”

“By the way, sir, I heard a lot of talk before we left Kingston about earthquake weather. In my opinion, a quiet, still night like this means some sort of a shake. At least, that’s what the natives say.”

“Yes; and the glass has been singularly high. That’s a sign of something in the wind,” was the response. “But go aft, Metcalf, and see that they clear that boat properly.”

“Yes, sir,” and the chief officer hurried off.

He found Colonel Minturn, who had been pacing the deck sleeplessly in his anxiety, beside the boat crew, watching their preparations. Jack, whose watch had just expired, was there, too.

“Something up, eh?” asked the colonel.

“Yes; there’s a drifting boat with a woman in it dead ahead. We’re going to pick her up.”

“I wonder if I could go along,” said the colonel. “It would be something to relieve this anxiety. It is terrible. I cannot sleep. All I can do is to walk the decks and think.”

“I’ll ask the captain,” said Mr. Metcalf. “Personally, I have no objections.”

He was soon back with the required permission.

“Ready, you’re off duty and I know you like anything like adventure, so if you want to come, get aboard.”

“Good!” exclaimed Jack. “Have you any idea what boat it is?”

“Not the least. That makes it all the more interesting. From what we can make out, though, it’s a ship’s boat of some sort.”

The big vessel almost ceased to move. Her propeller, driven by the slowly working engines, only made a ripple on the water. The boat was swung over and struck the sea with a gentle splash.

“There they are, men. Give way with a will now,” ordered Mr. Metcalf briskly.

The oars struck the water, sending serpents of phosphorescence over its dark surface. The boat moved swiftly forward toward the other craft, a small white gig apparently.

“There’s the woman,” cried Jack. “Look, she’s standing up and waving!”

“There’s a man there, too,” cried Mr. Metcalf. “Pull hard, men, the poor devils may have been drifting for days.”

“Hold on! We’re coming,” cried the colonel encouragingly, forgetting his own troubles in the sight of these two castaways of the sea.

The boats ranged alongside and the crew of the Tropic Queen’s boat seized the gunwale of the other craft, holding them together. Jack stood up and extended his arm to the young woman to aid her on board the liner’s boat.

The next instant a shock, sharp as the sudden sting of a galvanic battery, shook him.

The girl was Miss Jarrold! She recognized him at the same instant and gave a little cry. Simultaneously Jarrold and Colonel Minturn came face to face. A hoarse cry broke from Jarrold’s throat. He reached into an inside pocket and drew out a bundle, which he threw overboard before Minturn could catch his wrist in an iron grasp.

But as the papers splashed, and Jarrold broke out into a mocking laugh and cried, “You thought you had me beaten, but it’s you that are beaten now, Colonel Minturn,” there came another splash, a bigger one.

“It’s the kid!” shouted one of the sailors. “He’s gone after that bundle!”

Mr. Metcalf jumped from his seat to the assistance of Colonel Minturn, for Jarrold, maddened by the series of disasters that had overtaken him, had reached for and drawn a pistol. A crack over the wrist from an oar wielded by the first mate, sent the weapon flying overboard.

A few moments later Jarrold, who fought like a tiger, was lying bound in the bottom of the boat with two sailors guarding him. His niece sat in the stern sheets sobbing hysterically over the ironic turn of fate that had caused the ship that they thought was to rescue them to be the very one they most dreaded.

Jack was hauled back on board after a few seconds’ immersion. In one hand he held high a dripping bundle of papers. A sailor reached out to take them from him. But the boy refused to give them up.

“Only one man gets these,” he said, shaking the water from his curly head, “and that is Colonel Minturn.”

With a gasp of thankfulness that was almost a sob, the colonel took the papers from the boy’s hands, thrust them within his coat and then fairly hauled Jack on board.

By a twist of fate, seemingly incredible, but really attributable to a logical chain of events, the papers relating to the priceless secrets of the Panama Canal were once more in the proper hands. They never left them again.

CHAPTER XXXVIII – A BOLT FROM THE BLUE

All the way back to the ship the girl sat silent, with bowed head buried in her slender white hands. Jarrold, tied and harmless, on the floor of the boat, raved and swore incoherently. Not till she stood once more on the deck of the Tropic Queen, however, did the girl give way. Then as she saw her uncle, sullen and defiant now, led to the captain’s cabin where he was to be questioned, she reeled and would have fallen had not De Garros, who happened to be close at hand, caught her.

The sudden stopping of the ship had awakened most of the passengers and they had come on deck to see what was the matter.

“Here, take her below,” said De Garros to a stewardess, as the passengers crowded curiously around.

The ship was once more got under way, the boat lashed home and the voyage resumed, while in the captain’s cabin, facing Colonel Minturn, the wretched Jarrold told his story. But he expressed no sorrow, except for the failure of his mission. Captain McDonald ordered him confined in a cabin, to be turned over to the U. S. authorities when the ship reached Panama.

The sentence had hardly been executed, when a shuddering, jarring crash shook the ship.

Her way was checked abruptly and every plate and rivet in her steel fabric groaned.

Jack was thrown from his chair in the wireless room and hurled against a steel brace. He struck his head and fell unconscious to the floor.

For an instant following the shock, all was absolute silence. Then bedlam broke loose. Hoarse voices could be heard shouting orders, and the answering yells of the crew came roaring back. Women were screaming somewhere below, and men passengers were trying in vain to quiet them.

Sam was hurled out of his bunk, and, rudely awakened, found Jack lying stunned on the floor. He dashed some water over him and then ran to the bridge. Captain McDonald, firm and inflexible, stood there giving orders as calmly as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

“Shall I send out an S. O. S., sir?” asked Sam, striving to keep as cool as the ship’s commander.

“Not yet. I have not a full report of the extent of the injury to the ship,” was the reply. “First reports indicate that we have struck a submerged derelict.”

But as Sam went back to the wireless room, he saw the boats’ crews all standing by and every preparation being made for abandoning the ship. In an instinctive way, he felt that she had been mortally injured. She was still moving, but slowly, like a wounded thing dragging itself along.

The first officer came hurrying along the deck and shoved his head into the door.

“You had better try to raise any ship within our zone as fast as you can,” he said.

“You are going to send the passengers off?” asked Sam.

“Yes, as a measure of precaution. The derelict we struck has torn a big hole in the engine room. It is impossible to say how long we can keep afloat.”

He hurried off. Sam heard a groan and saw Jack rising on an elbow.

“What is it? What’s up?” he asked bewilderedly, and then: “Oh, I remember now. Any orders for an S. O. S., Sam?”

“Not yet. But we’re to raise any ship we can. They are sending the passengers off in the boats.”

“Wow! That was a crack I got when she struck,” said Jack, getting on his feet. “What did we hit, did you hear?”

“A submerged derelict. It has torn a big hole in the engine room.”

Jack took the key from Sam and began pounding it. But an exclamation of dismay spread over his face as he did so.

“No juice!” he exclaimed. “Or not enough to amount to anything. Here’s a fine fix.”

Below them, as they stood facing each other, thunderstruck at this disaster, every light on the ship went out.

“Dynamos out of business,” gasped Jack. He struck a match and lighted a lamp that hung in “gimbals” on the bulkhead.

They could hear the sharp staccato commands of the ship’s officers as they quelled the incipient panic that had followed the extinguishing of the lights. The boats were being filled and sent away with quiet and orderly precision, a boatswain or a quartermaster in each one. The higher officers could not leave the ship till later, by the law of the sea.

Everything moved quietly, almost silently. It was like watching a dream picture, Jack thought afterward. Luckily, the moon was bright and gave ample light for the disembarking of the passengers. It was just this, the bright moonlight, the cloudless sky and the smooth, summery sea that made it all seem so unreal. It seemed impossible that a death blow had been dealt to a mighty liner and that her passengers were in peril, on a sea like a millpond and under an unruffled sky.

Jack hastened forward to report the failure of the current, without which not a message of appeal could be flung abroad. The captain received the news without the flicker of an eyelid.

“At any rate, the passengers are all safe,” he said, “the boats are all off. Each has plenty of provisions and water and is in charge of a competent man. We are in for a long spell of fine weather and the coast is not far off. At the worst it will be a sea adventure for them with few discomforts.”

“Are you going to abandon the ship, sir?” asked Jack respectfully.

“No. My duty is to stay by her as long as I think there is a chance of saving her. The report from the engine room is that she can be run several miles yet before the water reaches the boilers. All the pumps are at work, full force, and that is the reason there is no power left for the dynamos.”

“Do you mean you are going to try to beach her, sir?” inquired Jack.

“If I can possibly do so,” was the reply. “There is an island not far to the south of here called Castle Island. If I can reach it in time and beach her, there may be one chance in a thousand of salving her, after all.”

Jack had asked all the questions he dared. Had it not been a time of such stress, he would not have ventured to ask so many.

He hurried back to the wireless room. Sam was busy at the key, but he shook his head in reply to Jack’s inquiring glance.

“Nothing doing,” he said. “Any news forward?”

“Yes. All the passengers are off and there are now on board only the officers and crew. The skipper means to run for an island called Castle Island and beach her there. He thinks that later there may be a chance of getting her hull off, if he can make it.”

“Then she is leaking fast?”

“Yes, they’ve got all the pumps going to keep the water from getting to the fires. That’s the reason we’ve got no juice.”

“Let’s look up Castle Island,” said Jack, partly to relieve the tenseness of their position as the wounded ship crawled strickenly southward and partly to keep Sam, who was making a plucky effort to fight back his fears, from thinking too much of their situation.

They soon found it – a small island shaped like a splash of gravy on a plate. It was marked with a red dot. Under this red dot, in italics, was written, “Volcano. Probably extinct.”

“Well, any old port in a storm,” remarked Jack, as he closed up the atlas.