Kitobni o'qish: «The Ocean Wireless Boys on the Pacific»

CHAPTER I. – ON THE BROAD PACIFIC

Twenty days out from San Francisco in the vast, heaving desert of the sea, twenty days of storm, sunshine and calm, the Sea Gypsy, the great white yacht of Jacob Jukes, head of the big Atlantic and Pacific Shipping Combine, was making her way lazily through the dreamy South Seas. The vessel was capable of great speed, being known as one of the fastest craft of her kind. But she was bound on a mission which might take a long time to consummate, and economy of coal, which was piled even on her decks, to re-enforce the supply in the bunkers, was necessary.

What this mission was remained, so far, a mystery to every one on board except Mr. Jukes himself, the iron-jawed and impenetrable organizer of the expedition. Up to this time he had shown no inclination to unburden himself of his secret, and although the craft was equipped with powerful wireless of the most modern type, the yacht had received no messages, nor had she sent any, under orders from Mr. Jukes.

On this particular evening Jack Ready leaned against the door of the wireless-room, a converted deck cabin, and covertly watched the heavy-shouldered, bull-necked form of the millionaire shipping man as the latter gazed over the rail across the vacant waters at the gorgeous sunset.

It was a true pageant of the heavens, such as is only to be seen in the Southern ocean. Great cloud-masses rose in wondrous forms, like glorified castle walls and turrets, glowing with purple and gold and red. Jack found himself following Mr. Jukes’ gaze. Although such spectacles had been almost nightly ones since they had steamed into the tropics, there was something wild and sinister about the present one that thrilled him.

Captain Septimus Sparhawk, the brown, gaunt captain of the yacht, whose thin face was decorated by two little dabs of grayish whiskers forward of each ear, passed by.

“Nothing to do but to look at the sky, eh?” he asked Jack, as a suspicion of a smile crept over his face.

“That’s about all, sir,” rejoined Jack, with a laugh. “I expect to see spiders spinning webs on my instruments every day. I haven’t touched the key since we sailed.”

The captain shook his head. He was an old and loyal employee of the shipping man, and not much given to words. But, apparently, now he felt called upon to express himself.

“It’s a queer business, lad,” he said, “and it may get queerer still before we find out what it’s all about. I’m as much in the dark as you or the cabin boy. But right now that sunset worries me more than anything else.”

“You’re on the look-out for a storm?” asked Jack, noting a sudden look of anxiety in the captain’s pale blue eyes, surrounded by a network of tiny wrinkles, due to long gazing into salty gales.

“Worse than that, Ready,” was the rejoinder. “This is the hurricane season in these parts and the glass, – I’ve just taken a squint at it, – is dropping as if it never meant to stop.”

“If I could use the wireless – ” began Jack.

“We could probably get a weather reading from some other ship,” interrupted the captain, starting off, “but as it is, we might as well not have it on board at all. The thing’s got me stumped.”

He carried himself off on his long, thin legs but paused to speak to Mr. Jukes. The ship-owner, although Jack could not hear what was said, appeared to be agitated somewhat by the captain’s words, for he began puffing rapidly at his after-dinner cigar, sending out smoke like the exhaust of a locomotive funnel, a sure sign, as Jack had observed, that he was disturbed.

“I’ll make all snug, sir,” the boy heard the captain say, as he turned away, “and then we will be prepared for whatever happens.”

“Very well, Sparhawk,” answered Mr. Jukes, in a somewhat louder voice than he had used hitherto, “and be sure to see to it that the deck load of coal is secured safely. They tell me the bunkers are running low.”

As has been stated, the Sea Gypsy’s decks were piled high fore and aft with coal, kept in place by wooden bulkheads, which did not add to the appearance of the ship and encumbered progress from bow to stern. Only amidships, where the cabins were situated, was the deck clear. As the captain ascended the bridge he turned and gave an order to a petty officer and presently the crew could be seen at work lashing big tarpaulins down over the coal which was so important to keep the Sea Gypsy moving on her mysterious mission.

The news that the coal supply was running low in the bunkers was a surprise to Jack. He made for Billy Raynor’s cabin where the young chief engineer of the yacht was writing up his “log.”

“Yes, it’s right,” he rejoined to Jack’s question, “the loss of that deck load would be a serious matter. We’re a good many hundred miles from land and will have to tap the supply before long.”

“Billy, what on earth do you suppose is the object of this voyage?” demanded Jack abruptly.

“Blessed if I know, but I’m well satisfied with my promotion and job,” declared Raynor. “Cruising these wonderful seas in a yacht that’s a beauty, even if her decks are all littered up like a cattle boat’s, just about suits me.”

“That’s all right, you’ve got something to do,” complained Jack. “But look at my case. I have to polish up my instruments every day to keep them from getting rusty.”

“Serves you right for not stopping ashore and enjoying yourself,” chuckled Raynor teasingly. “Since you sold that ‘Universal Detector’ of yours to the government you could surely afford to.”

“Just as if I could kick my heels on shore doing nothing,” was Jack’s indignant reply, “but it does seem as if it’s about time we knew something of what this voyage is for.”

“Maybe it’s just a pleasure cruise to allow Mr. Jukes to get away from his business troubles,” hazarded Raynor.

Jack shook his head in decided negative.

“There’s more in it than that,” he declared positively. “Mr. Jukes is first of all a man of business. He wouldn’t come skylarking across the Pacific for three weeks if he was just out for a cruise. He’d go where he could keep in touch with the market and Wall Street.”

“That’s so,” Raynor was compelled to agree. “Well, I suppose when he gets ready to spill some information he’ll do it. In the meantime my job just suits me. But what made you ask about the deck coal?”

“Because Captain Sparhawk says we’re in for a bad blow, maybe a hurricane.”

Raynor’s usually cheerful face became suddenly serious.

“When did he say that?” he asked.

“Just now. They’re putting tarpaulins over it now. If we dropped it, we’d be in a bad fix, eh, Billy?”

“We’d have about coal enough left for two or three days,” rejoined Raynor.

“And after that – ?”

“It would be a case of ‘merrily we drift along.’”

The door gave a sudden sharp slam. A puff of wind, sweeping suddenly over the hitherto breathless sea, had banged it shut.

Jack jumped up and swung it quickly open again.

“Here she comes,” he cried excitedly.

At the same instant the Sea Gypsy gave a sidelong lurch that sent both lads helter-skelter across the cabin. Outside came a sudden bawling of voices and a distant, disquieting roar that grew louder every second.

CHAPTER II. – THE OCEAN IN A RAGE

Directly they recovered their sea legs, both lads made for the cabin door. A wonderful but alarming spectacle met their eyes. The sunset had been blotted out as if by magic. In its place was a ragged, inky-black cloud curtain that was being swept across the sky as if invisible, titanic hands were swiftly pulling it.

The sea immediately about them was heaving wildly in great swells that tumbled the Sea Gypsy, rendered less stable by her top-heavy load, from side to side. Far off, under the rushing black cloud, the forefront of which was almost over them by this time, was a jagged line of white.

Mr. Booth, the second mate, bundled up in oilskins, ran past the boys on his way to the bridge.

“Better get under cover,” he advised as he passed. “This is going to be a hummer.”

But, fascinated by the majestic sight, both boys stood still, clutching the rail and bracing themselves for the shock they felt was coming, for both had guessed that the jagged white line in the distance was a giant wave. Like a cliff of water it grew as it swept toward them, accompanied by a howling of the wind that sounded like a witches’ carnival. So swift was its advance that the boys had hardly time to run toward the cabin when it broke upon them.

The Sea Gypsy heeled like a ship that had been struck a mortal blow. For one instant she hung balanced as if she was about to capsize. The door of the cabin in which the boys had taken refuge was ripped from its hinges by the terrific force of the impact as if it had been matchwood.

The next moment both lads were struggling for their lives in a surging, sweeping smother of water that filled the cabin to the roof. Jack felt himself clutched by the hands of his chum. Fighting to keep himself above water, Jack saw that Raynor had been hurled against some object and been wounded. There was a jagged cut in his forehead.

He had hardly noticed this, when the Sea Gypsy staggered back to an even keel. As she did so the water swept out of the cabin like a millrace, carrying both boys helplessly with it.

Jack felt Raynor torn from his arms, and the next thing he realized he was struggling for his life in the waves that reared and roared above the floundering yacht.

A month before the events we are describing took place, Jack Ready, the young wireless operator of the Sea Gypsy, and his inseparable chum, Billy Raynor, had been summoned to Mr. Jukes’ New York office and told that they were detached from duty on the big Columbia, the crack liner of the Jukes’ ships, and ordered to pack their things forthwith and meet the ship-owner at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco within a week. Neither had demurred, supposing some interest of the ship-owners called for their presence there. But, much to their bewilderment, they had each been handed a substantial check by Mr. Jukes on his arrival in the western metropolis, told to outfit themselves for a long voyage, and nothing more. Two days later the Sea Gypsy cleared the harbor.

The acquaintance of Jack and Mr. Jukes had its beginning in certain events which took place near Jack’s quaint home, which he shared with an eccentric uncle on an old schooner in the Erie Basin in New York. The rescue by Jack of Mr. Jukes’ little daughter, and the result on his affairs, were fully detailed in the first volume of this series, which was called “The Ocean Wireless Boys on the Atlantic.” This is not the place to re-tell all the exciting adventures that befell Jack and young Raynor, who was third engineer on the steamer to which Jack was assigned, in fulfillment of his ambition to be a “wireless man.”

Nor can we do more here than to hint at the contents of the second volume. This was called “The Ocean Wireless Boys and the Lost Liner,” and set forth the fate of the Tropic Queen. In this book we found Jack and his inseparable chum steadily progressing in their chosen professions, and also met several other characters, all of whom had an important bearing on the events of the boys’ lives. Mr. Jukes took formal recognition of the part Jack played in the disaster that overtook the Tropic Queen, and inwardly resolved that his heroism and devotion to duty had made him a lad worth watching.

Still a third volume followed, describing the boys’ further adventures. In the “Ocean Wireless Boys of the Iceberg Patrol,” much interesting information about the manner in which the ocean lanes are guarded from the white menace of the north, was given. The boys shared in many thrilling adventures also, and ended by discovering something that an expedition, at the head of which was Jack’s Uncle Toby, had almost lost through the tricks of a band of hard characters.

The fourth book setting forth their doings was called “The Ocean Wireless Boys and the Naval Code.” Captain Simms of the U. S. N., after devising a novel code for the use of this government, through the machinations of a band of daring rascals, found himself robbed of it. Wireless played a big part in the recovery of the documents in the long run, Jack acquitting himself to the delight of the naval officials and the government by his work in this connection. Some of the miscreants, whose tricks Jack had helped to frustrate, were sent to prison but others got free. These latter the boys, though they little suspected it, were destined to meet again.

CHAPTER III. – A LONG NIGHT

Blinded, choked and with a red mist before his eyes, and in his ears the roar of waters, Jack fought the undertow of the retreat of the giant wave with all his strength. All at once he felt some heavy object hurled against him.

The force of the collision almost knocked what little breath remained in his body out of his lungs. Instinctively he reached out for whatever it was that had struck him.

It was a human body.

The boy had hardly realized this before he found himself flung, panting and gasping, down upon the deck. Thanks to the stays of the foremost of the Sea Gypsy’s two masts, against which the retreating wave had pitched him, he had not been drawn overboard. Instead, as the pressure of water relaxed, it had dropped him and the mute burden he had clasped, to the deck.

For a few minutes Jack lay there panting, too much exhausted to exert a muscle or limb. The unconscious form hurtled against him by the swirling waters lay at his side. It was too dark for Jack to see then who it was, or if life remained in the motionless figure. By-and-by, as his strength came back, he got to his feet and dragged the limp form to a cabin. It proved to be the one which the great wave had swept from Jack so unceremoniously. Luckily, although the seas were thundering mountains high about the laboring yacht, none like that first terrific comber assailed her.

Steadying himself on the rocking floor with much difficulty, Jack fumbled for the electric switch. He found it at last and let on a flood of light. The radiance shed itself on a pale face with a deeply slashed forehead that lay at the boy’s feet.

“It’s Billy,” choked the boy. He got on his knees by Raynor’s unconscious form and gently raised his chum’s head. It fell back limply. A blood-chilling thought surged through Jack and he grew as white as the lad he held.

He put his hand hastily over Raynor’s heart and a great wave of relief went through him. His chum’s heart was beating, although feebly. It was not too late to save him. It was a hard task for Jack to stagger across that bounding, reeling floor, carrying the limp and unconscious Raynor, but at last he managed to accomplish it, and deposited the injured young engineer in the bunk that occupied one side of the latter’s cabin. Then he washed and dressed the injury as best he could.

“Now I’ll have to get help,” said the boy to himself. “The captain’s got a medicine chest and bandages, but we have no doctor. I’ll go and find the skipper.”

Out upon the dripping decks, over which a wave crest would every now and then curl, with a roar like that of a waterfall, Jack once more emerged. Clawing at hand-holds and desperately clinging on now and then when a wave threatened to tear loose his grip, he wormed his way forward. As he reached the bridge deck, he heard a thunderous roar forward, and the Sea Gypsy, as if she had been freed of a burden, made a sudden plunge skyward, with her bow pointing almost straight at the obscured heavens.

“There goes the fore-deck load of coal,” thought Jack, as he made his way to where, in the lee of the pilot house some obscure figures stood huddled. Ten minutes later he and the gaunt form of Captain Sparhawk were bending over Raynor, as he lay white and still, in his bunk. With rough skill the captain dressed the wound.

“It’s a wonder that Mr. Jukes wouldn’t have brought a doctor along,” he muttered. “He’s carrying a rapid-fire gun, so why not sawbones, too?”

“Where is Mr. Jukes?” demanded Jack suddenly.

“In his cabin, I guess. I haven’t seen him since this ocean tantrum broke out.”

“The – the rapid-fire gun you spoke about?” asked Jack.

The other looked at him in some confusion.

“Confound my habit of talking to myself,” he exclaimed. “Did you hear that?”

“I couldn’t help it,” apologised Jack. “Are we going to fight any one?”

“You must ask Mr. Jukes that,” answered the captain, non-committally. “It’s up to him to tell what he wants to. All I know is that there is one on board. Maybe he brought it along to shoot clay pigeons with. Maybe not. I don’t know.”

“Well,” he added, “I’ve got to get for’ard again. I guess our young ship-mate will do now. He had a nasty crack though. Both of you are lucky you’re not in Davy Jones’ locker.”

All through the rest of that tempestuous night Jack sat by his chum, dozing off at times and then waking with a start to hear the uproar of the hurricane as they struggled through it. The dawn showed a troubled sea, leaping at the yacht as though to engulf her. The wind almost flattened Jack against the deck house as, Raynor having sunk into a deep sleep after an interval of consciousness, the young wireless man set out to see what chance there was for breakfast.

The companionway to the dining saloon on the deck below was in the after part of the ship. As he was about to descend an unusually big wave lifted the Sea Gypsy dizzily skyward, and then rushed her downward. There was a heave and a crash from the stern and Jack saw the after deck load of coal vanish like a black avalanche, to be swallowed up in the maw of the sea.

“Worse, and more of it,” he muttered, as some of the crew who had narrowly escaped being overwhelmed, set up a shout; “this will be bad news to give poor old Billy.”

CHAPTER IV. – THE DERELICT

Two days later the hurricane had blown itself out. The storm-stressed crew were set to work putting things to rights and the yacht put on more of her normal appearance. But she had been sadly battered for all that. Two boats were stove in, ventilators smashed and stanchions bent and twisted by the fury of the waves.

The flat, oily sea that succeeded the wild turmoil of the hurricane, heaved gently without a ripple as Jack and Raynor, the latter recovered but still wearing a bandage round his head, stood looking over the rail into the glassy waters.

So transparent was the ocean that, under them, they could see great fish swimming about slowly and lazily, as if life held no hurry for them. Now and then a great shark glided by, nosing about the ship for scraps. His sharp, triangular dorsal fin stuck from his back like a blue steel knife cutting the surface and glistening like a thing of metal. About these great tigers of the deep, two smaller fish usually hovered. These were pilot fish, the strange sea-creatures that invariably accompany sharks, and are supposed by sailors to pilot them to their prey.

Then there were queer-looking “gonies,” with their flat heads winging their way above the water and every now and then dropping, with a scream and a splash, in a group of a dozen to fight furiously over some drifting morsel. After these tussles they appeared to “run” over the water to give their heavy, awkward bodies a good start upward. Then, having attained a certain height, down they would flop again, like weights shooting through the air, hitting the water with a heavy splash and sliding, with a white wake behind them, for some feet.

Schools of nautilus, too, gave them something to look at as the delicate little creatures, with their thin, membranous sails set, drifted by under the gentle breeze that hardly ruffled the water.

“Doesn’t look much as if this ocean could ever have kicked up the ructions it did, eh, Billy?” remarked Jack, after a long silence.

“It does not,” replied Raynor, with a rueful grin, “but I owe it this crack on the head.”

“And the loss of that coal,” chimed in Jack. “No wonder you look glum, old fellow. We’ll never make port on what’s below.”

“Not a chance of it,” was the rejoinder, “about all we can do is to use the sails if the worst comes to the worst.”

“Well, as we don’t appear to have any port in view, and nothing to do but to keep on drifting about like another Flying Dutchman, I don’t see that it much matters where we fetch up,” commented Jack, with some irritation.

It was at that instant that there came an interruption. The voice of the sea-man at the look-out forward broke the spell.

“Steamer, ho!” he shouted.

“Where away?” came a hoarse voice from the bridge, that of Mr. Jolliffe, the first officer.

“Three p’ints on the starbo’d bow.”

“Let’s go forward and have a look,” suggested Jack. “You’re not on watch for some time yet.”

“I’m with you,” agreed Raynor. “Anything for variety’s sake. Wonder what ship it is?”

“Too far off to make out yet,” said Jack, as, far off, they could just about see, by straining their eyes, a small dark speck on the distant horizon.

“I don’t see any smoke,” said Raynor. “Perhaps it’s a sailing ship after all.”

“We’ll know before long,” was Jack’s reply.

During an interval in which the Sea Gypsy drew steadily toward the craft that had, by this time, excited the attention of all on board, the boys saw Mr. Jukes emerge from his cabin and take his place on the bridge beside Captain Sparhawk. That bronzed mariner handed the millionaire his glasses and Mr. Jukes’ rather fat, pallid face took on an unwonted hue of excitement as he handed them back.

The boys standing on the main deck just below the bridge heard the owner of the yacht putting sharp questions. He showed more animation than he had at any time during the voyage. The sight of the other craft appeared to affect him curiously.

“She’s a schooner, Sparhawk.”

“Undoubtedly, sir.”

“But although she has her canvas set she is making no way.”

“That appears to be correct. But there is little wind. Odd though that she doesn’t signal us.”

Mr. Jukes snatched up the glasses again from the shelf where he had laid them down.

“Blessed if I can make out a soul on board her, Sparhawk,” he exclaimed presently. “Here, try what you can do.”

He handed the binoculars over to the master of the Sea Gypsy. Captain Sparhawk took a prolonged observation. When he, in turn, laid the glasses down his thin, mahogany-hued face bore a puzzled look.

“It’s queer, sir, but I don’t seem to be able to make out a living soul either.”

“A derelict, perhaps?”

“Possibly,” assented the captain, and no more was said as, with all eyes fixed on the strange schooner, the Sea Gypsy drew nearer. The boys could now make out every detail of the other craft. She was a trig-looking schooner, painted black, with a flush deck except for her after house and a small structure astern of the fore-mast. Her canvas was set but it flapped idly in the light breeze as she swung to and fro on the Pacific swells. No guiding hand could be seen at her wheel. Not a soul was visible on her deserted decks.

There is no more melancholy sight than a sea derelict, the aimless prey of winds and currents, drifting sometimes for years over the trackless wastes of the ocean. The boys felt something of this as all doubt as to human occupancy of the schooner vanished.

“Deserted, I reckon,” hazarded Jack. “Although her canvas appears perfect, her hull sound and – ”

He broke off sharply. From the abandoned ship there had suddenly come a sound which, under the circumstances, was particularly depressing and even startling.

It was the measured tolling of a bell, like a funeral knell.