THE SPARK FINDS A FRIEND THROUGH THE GALE
The time had dragged on far into the night. Joe was still at the
wireless sending table, sleepless, patient, brave--a sailor born and
bred.
Jasper, like many another rascal a superstitious coward in the face of
impending death, was seeking to appease the sting of his conscience by
doing everything in his power to make amends in these grave moments.
He stood by, pallid-faced yet collected enough to obey any order
instantly.
Captain Tom remained on deck all the time now, though Hank often
relieved him briefly at the wheel. Both Hepton and Jasper stood by to
help as deck-hands. Powell Seaton came up on deck occasionally, though
he remained more in the motor room.
Again and again Joe signaled--always that desperately appealing
"C.Q.D.!" It was all the signal he needed to send out. Wherever heard,
on land or water, the first operator to catch it would break in at
once with a demand for further particulars.
Yet Joe's soul grew sick within him as time passed, and no such break
came through the storm-laden air. For Dawson, as well as had he stood
on deck, knew that this endless, malignant fury of the gale must
sooner or later start the seams of the staunch little craft. Or else,
struck by a wave bigger than any others, she would lie so far over on
her beam ends that she must finish the manoeuvre by "turning
turtle"--lying with her keel uppermost, and the crew penned underneath
to drown in haste.
"Nothing to report yet, Joe, old fellow?" came down Captain Tom's
brave though anxious voice for perhaps the fortieth time.
"No reply to our signals, Tom," went back the answer.
"Do you think our spark is still strong enough to carry far?"
"Plenty of electric 'juice' left," Joe responded. "The spark is as
strong as ever. Oh, if we only had as much gasoline!"
"Oh, if we only had!"
But ten minutes after that last call Joe again sent forth:
"C.Q.D.! C.Q.D.!"
Then down the receivers traveled a click--not loud, yet unmistakable.
"Where are you? Answer!" came the response, out of the air from some
quarter.
In frantic haste Joe Dawson fell upon his key once more.
Motor yacht "Restless!" Under no power whatever.
Gasoline almost gone--saving the last for any emergency
chance that comes to us. All canvas blown overboard. Do
you get this?
It seemed to frenzied Joe Dawson as though many minutes passed, yet
the response came promptly:
Give us your present position, "Restless," as best you
know it!
Joe obeyed with fingers that seemed themselves to be worked by
electricity. The receiver of the message repeated Joe's response, to
make sure that it was correct.
"Who are you?" Joe now broke in to answer.
Havana liner, bound north, and, we believe, within thirty
miles of you. Have you been signaling long?
"Seems as though I had been signaling for years," sent back Joe,
laughing nervously to himself. The answer came:
We'd heard you before, then, but there was a little mishap
to our installation. You keep at your table to send and
receive. I'll do the same at my end. Keep up your courage
until we reach you. Be ready to burn Coston lights
when we ask you to.
Then how fast Joe Dawson managed to talk up through the speaking tube!
Tom Halstead, after first announcing the great news to the deck with a
wild cheer, put Hank at the wheel and hurried below. Shortly, however,
the young skipper was back on deck, bearing the wonderful news.
In smooth weather the Havana liner, ordinarily a fifteen-knot boat,
would have reached them in two hours. Under the weather conditions of
this wild night it was much later when the two craft were within
hailing distance by signal lights. Hank was now in command of the
deck, Skipper Tom and Powell Seaton being with Joe.
"Shall we try to send you a line for a tow?" came the demand from the
liner.
"Yes," replied Halstead. Then, with a grimace he added:
"But the salvage charge for such a tow will call for more than we can
raise, Joe, old fellow. I reckon the 'Restless' will have to be put up
for sale to pay her own bills."
"Do you think I'd let you boys stand the towing charges?" demanded
Powell Seaton, indignantly. "Whatever charges there are are mine to
pay, and I'm at least good for the entire purchase price of a few
boats like even this good little old salt water wizard!"
Tom soon afterwards made his way to the deck, but Mr. Seaton, weak and
almost ill after the hours of anxiety, threw himself upon a cushioned
seat near the wireless sending table.
As Tom stood on the bridge deck he studied the liner's lights as that
larger craft manoeuvred in to the leeward of the motor craft.
Once she had gained this position at a sufficient distance to make any
collision on this wild sea unlikely, the liner steamed ahead.
"Stand ready to receive our line!" came to Joe in clicks through the
watch-case receivers over either ear. He swiftly transmitted the order
through the speaking tube to Halstead on the bridge.
Then the liner burned another light. Tom answered with one held in his
own hand. It was the signal to look for the line, and the answer.
Through the darkness came a sudden, red flash from the after deck of
the liner. The wind was so heavy that those on the bridge deck of the
"Restless" could not be sure that they heard the report of the gun.
But a missile whizzed over their heads, and to this blessed projectile
trailed a thin line that fell across the top of the cabin deck.
Tom and Hank made a simultaneous bolt to get hold of that line. It was
young Butts who secured it. He passed it on to the young captain,
and, together, they leaped to the bridge-deck with it. From there they
crawled forward over the raised deck, slipping the line, at last,
between the two raised ends of the towing bitt.
"Now, haul in with a will," glowed the young skipper, as they crept
back to the bridge-deck. A great wave swept over them on their way
back. Tom saw it coming, and braced himself. Hank was caught by the
rush of waters; he would have been swept overboard, but Halstead
grabbed at one of his ankles, holding on grimly.
At that moment the late prisoner, Jasper, saw what was happening.
Projecting himself forward over the raised deck, he, too, caught hold
of Hank Butts, while Powell Seaton held to Jasper.
It was a sort of human chain by which Hank was pulled to safety. Tom,
throughout the excitement, held the "thin line" in one hand.
"Haul in this thin line, quickly," shouted the young commander, who
could barely make himself heard above the tumult of the gale.
As the line was some four hundred feet long, it used up precious
moments to haul it and coil up the slack. As the last of the "thin
line" came into their hands there came with it the first of a stouter
hawser, the two lines being knotted securely together.
"Hold on to me, now! Form a chain again," ordered Skipper Tom. "I'll
make the hawser fast forward."
All this while the Havana liner, some four hundred feet away, was
going through a complicated bit of manoeuvering under the hands of her
officers. Alternately she moved at half-speed-ahead, at stop, or on
the reverse, in order that, despite the high-rolling waves, she might
not go too far ahead and snap the thin line. But now young Halstead
soon had a stout hitch about the towing bitt at the bow. A few more
turns, then he signaled to those behind holding him to help him back
to the bridge deck. A dozen great waves had rolled over him on that
smooth raised deck, but the members of the human chain hauled him back
to safety.
"Signal to our friends that they can apply full speed ahead, Joe, if
they want to," directed the young motor boat captain, briefly, as he
reached the comparative safety of the bridge deck once more.
Over the noise of the gale the answering blast from the liner's
whistle came to them as a far-away sound. But now the big boat ahead
started on at a ten-knot speed.
"Gracious, but this seems good, once more!" glowed Tom Halstead,
taking over the wheel as the towing hawser tautened and the "Restless"
began to move forward under a headway that could be controlled and
directed.
"We couldn't have stood this racket much longer, without a tow,"
chattered Joe. "I've had moments at the wheel, to-night, when, on
account of our helplessness, I've felt sure we were going to 'turn
turtle.'"
"What ails your jaws, old fellow?" demanded Tom, looking curiously at
his chum. "Say, you're shaking to pieces, and I don't wonder. Get
below and get dry and warm. Get below all of you, except one to stand
by me. Who can best remain on deck for a few minutes more?"
"I can," proposed Jasper, starting forward with an odd mixture of
sullenness and eagerness in his tone.
"I'll trust you--now," nodded Captain Halstead, after eyeing the man
keenly. "The rest of you get below. We want a few dry folks aboard."
On board there was clothing in abundance, enough to enable everyone to
make at least a few changes. Now that the "Restless" could be held to
a course, Hank Butts cautiously made a small fire in the galley stove,
and then stood by to watch the fire. After a while he had coffee
going--this with a "cold bite" of food.
Hepton came up, bye-and-bye, to take the wheel. As he was wholly
capable, Tom surrendered the helm to him, then dropped down below for
some of that coffee.
"We've found out to-night what a wireless is good for," declared Joe.
"But for it, we wouldn't have kept the 'Restless' afloat and right
side up through the night."
"Until we got this tow I didn't expect ever to see port again," Tom
Halstead admitted, quietly. "Do you know, the worst thing folks will
have against row-boats in the future will be the fact that row-boats
are too small to carry a wireless installation!"
"You feel wholly safe, now, do you, captain?" demanded Powell Seaton.
"It rather seems to me that the gale has been getting heavier."
"It has," Halstead admitted. "If we were adrift, now, we probably
couldn't keep right-side up for ten minutes. But give the 'Restless'
real headway, and she'll weather any gale that a liner or a warship
will."
"If the towing hawser should part!" shuddered Mr. Seaton.
"We'd hope to get another line across, and made fast, before we
'turned turtle,'" replied Skipper Tom.
No one could venture from below on the bridge deck without being
quickly drenched. For that reason the wheel-reliefs were short. Hank,
by staying right by his galley fire, was able to keep heat at which
anyone coming down from the bridge deck could dry himself.
By daylight the gale and sea were lighter. For one thing, the Havana
liner had carried her tow so far north that they were out of the worst
of it. Half an hour after daylight the wireless operator aboard the
larger craft telegraphed Joe:
"We've taken you in four miles off the town of Mocalee. You can get
gasoline there. Do you want to cast off our line now?"
"Yes," flashed back Joe, after consulting Captain Halstead. "And our
greatest, heartiest thanks for your fine work for us."
There was further interchange of courtesies, then the line was cast
off as soon as Joe and Hank had started the twin motors going on the
little that was left of the gasoline. There was no way, or need, to
settle the liner's towing charges now. These could be collected later,
for the "Restless" was a boat registered by the United States
authorities. She could be found and libeled anywhere if her young
owners failed to settle.
"Hooray! But doesn't it feel great to be moving under one's own power
again!" chortled Captain Tom, as he felt the vibration of the
propellers and swung the steering wheel.
Though the coast had been visible from daylight, the town of Mocalee
was not in sight until the boat neared the mouth of a river. Up this
stream, half a mile, nestled a quaint little Florida town, where, as
one of the natives afterwards expressed it to Joe, "we live on fish in
summer and sick Yankees in winter."
"We'd better get on shore, all hands, and stretch our legs," proposed
Powell Seaton, after Skipper Tom had made the "Restless" fast at the
one sizable dock of the town. "I see a hotel over yonder. I invite you
all to be my guests at breakfast--on a floor that won't rock!"
"I'll stay aboard, then, to look after the boat," volunteered Hepton.
"And you can rely on me to keep a mighty sharp eye on that man,
Jasper," he added, in Halstead's ear.
It was after seven o'clock in the morning when the shore party from
the "Restless," after strolling about a little, turned toward the
hotel.
As they passed through a corridor on the way to the office Tom
Halstead glanced at a red leather bag that was being brought
downstairs by a negro bell-boy.
"Do you see the bag that servant has?" asked Tom, in a whisper, as he
clutched Powell Seaton's arm. "Scar on the side, and all, I'd know
that bag anywhere. It's the one Anson Dalton brought over the side
when he boarded the 'Restless' from the 'Constant'!"