TO THE RESCUE
“Aren’t you going to turn in?”
Sam asked the question as, at midnight, he came on watch. He took his
position at the key, but, to his surprise, Jack did not show his usual
alacrity to seek his bunk.
“I guess I’ll sit up a while,” rejoined Jack, without a trace of
drowsiness.
Then he added, as Sam looked his bewilderment, “Sammy, my boy, just cast
your eye over those copies of radios I got and answered while you were
asleep.”
Sam obeyed, scanning the despatches and the answers to them, copied in
carbon, with deep interest. When he had finished he looked up.
“I can guess the reason for your staying up now,” he said.
“Well?” asked Jack, his eyes dancing.
“You’re going along in that boat!”
“A good guess,” laughed Jack. “You don’t mind, do you, Sam?”
“Not a bit. If you will insist on risking your neck, it’s no affair of
mine,” laughed Sam.
“Hum, you’re a nice, sympathetic little friend, aren’t you?” inquired
Jack, giving Sam a dig in the ribs. “But seriously, though,” he added,
“you don’t think it selfish of me to go off alone and——”
“Get a ducking?” chuckled Sam. “No, I don’t. I’d rather be comfortable
here on board than trying to make a landing on an island beach. It’s ten
to one you get tipped over in the surf.”
“Not much danger of that,” said Jack; “we’ve got some skillful oarsmen
in the crew, and you know that boat drill is one of the fads of this
line.”
“Well, what time do you expect to start?”
“Haven’t any idea, but the skipper said we ought to be up with the
island by dawn.”
“If I were you, I’d turn in and get some sleep.”
“Couldn’t take a wink. I’m too keyed up about the trip.”
Jack looked at his watch, the fine gold one that had been presented to
him in Antwerp on his first voyage, in recognition of a brave deed.
“Not one o’clock yet,” he muttered impatiently.
“It won’t be light for four hours anyhow,” counseled Sam; “you’d better
get into your bunk.”
But Jack was so fearful of being left behind that he refused to turn in.
However, after a time, as he sat in the spare chair of the wireless
room, his eyelids did close in spite of all he could do to prevent them.
Sam smiled as, turning around, he saw that his chum was asleep.
It was Schultz, the old quartermaster, who aroused Jack by poking his
head into the door of the wireless room.
“Ahoy, vere is dot Yack vot vants to go midt us py der Somprero Lighdt?”
Jack awakened with a start.
“Eh? What?” he demanded sleepily.
“Vell, don’t you vant to go midt us py der Somprero?” asked Schultz.
“Oder dot you schleep?”
Broad awake now, Jack sprang to his feet.
“All right, Schultz, I’ll be with you in a jiffy,” he exclaimed.
“Don’t make no nefer mindt aboudt gedtting prettied oop,” grinned the
old quartermaster grimly, as Jack plunged his face into a basin of cold
water and parted his tousled hair; “maype vee gedt idt a spill in der
vater before ve gedt back der ship py.”
“There, what did I tell you?” demanded Sam triumphantly; but Jack only
grinned.
There was a great trampling about on the decks outside. The men who had
been selected to form the boat’s crew, the pick of the sailors, were
running about, loading the small craft with provisions and barrels of
fresh water.
To the men this sudden call for a trip to the shore came in the nature
of a junket. It afforded an agreeable bit of relaxation in the midst of
the hum-drum monotony of sea life. A sailor on such an expedition is
like a boy off on a picnic. The men joked and laughed as, in the gray of
the early light, they hustled about between boat and storeroom.
Dr. Flynn, to Jack’s disappointment, was unable to go. A sick patient on
board demanded all his attention. But he put up a case of medicines for
the old light keeper and gave Jack directions how to administer them;
for, by means of the old man’s symptoms, transmitted by wireless through
Jack, the doctor of the _Tropic Queen_ had been able to diagnose the
trouble as being a case of tropic fever.
At last all was ready, and a few early-rising passengers saw the boat
lowered and pulled away for the dim speck of land on the far horizon
that marked the site of Sombrero Island. A few moments later the
stopping of the _Tropic Queen’s_ engines aroused the other passengers,
and before the breakfast bugle blew, the ship was humming with
conjecture and surmise as to the reason for the sudden check in the
voyage.
A bulletin, posted by the captain’s orders, dispelled the mystery. It
also announced that the boat was expected back by evening at the latest.