A STORM AT SEA.
In fifteen minutes or so the boys learned, by means of this novel
method of telegraphy, that in the next cabin to them were imprisoned
Mr. Chadwick, Professor Von Dinkelspeil and Captain Abe Sprowl, the
skipper of the yacht. As we already know, both our lads were experts at
the key, as was their father, and Dick Donovan had picked up enough of
the art in newspaper offices to be able to understand at least part of
what Mr. Chadwick was signaling.
It naturally took some time to place them in full possession of all the
facts pertaining to their uncomfortable position, but by degrees they
were told all that Mr. Chadwick knew of the case. The crew of rascals
at present in possession of the yacht was the same outfit that had
been shipped hurriedly at Madeira. Either out of maliciousness, or
because they really believed it, certain members of the old crew had
told the new hands that the professor was off on a hunt for fabulous
treasure on the Spanish Main.
Trouble had broken out in mid-ocean. The crew had sent a committee to
the professor formally to demand a share in the treasure. This, of
course, had been denied for the very excellent reason that the trip
was not making a treasure hunt. Its object was purely scientific, its
destination, that naturalists’ paradise, the Upper Amazon. But the
crew, their minds inflated by hopes of gold and jewels, professed to
believe that they were being tricked. No words of Captain Sprowl,
an old Yankee mariner, could convince them to the contrary. Under
the leadership of Mart. Medway, the bristly-moustached man, and Luke
Hemming, his lieutenant in mischief, they had been ugly for weeks.
This led to Captain Sprowl’s bluntly telling them that on arrival in
America, to which he was shaping his course for that purpose, they
would all be discharged and new men taken on in their places. This did
not suit the men at all. Driven wild by dreams of wealth they broke
into open mutiny a short time after the professor had sent his wireless
despatch to Mr. Chadwick. Led by Medway and Luke Hemming, they insisted
that the yacht be held on her course for South America. A refusal to
do so resulted in so much trouble that the yacht had been navigated as
close to the shore as was safe, and the guns fired for aid when they
saw in the distance what they thought was the Baking Pan Life Saving
Station. What followed then, we already know.
Of course it took a long time to explain this with the primitive means
at the command of those who had so unexpectedly got into communication.
It was a matter of vast joy to Jack, though, to know that his father
was uninjured and in good spirits, although, so Mr. Chadwick had
tapped out, those on the other side of the partition were as much in
doubt as to their ultimate fate as were the boys themselves.
By the time it was deemed prudent to cease communication for the time
being, there was an angry sea running outside. Once a big green wave
climbed the yacht’s side and swept in a torrent into the boys’ cabin.
They had to close the port-hole and this made the tiny place almost
insufferably stuffy. The motion, too, of the yacht as she plowed
through the rising sea made Dick feel uncomfortably squeamish. Luckily,
both Jack and Tom were good sailors and felt no inconvenience.
Night had fallen and the cabin was plunged in darkness, but nobody
came near them. There was an electric globe in the cabin, but when
Jack tried to turn it on he found that the current had been cut off.
From outside the door they could hear the buzz of voices, but were
not able to distinguish words. Presumably Medway and Hemming were
in consultation. But even though the boys tried their utmost to hear
something, hoping that it might shed some light on their ultimate
destiny, the complaining of the laboring ship and the low tone in which
the men’s voices were pitched, prevented any eavesdropping.
And so the hours wore on, the prisoners from time to time communicating
by tapping in the Morse code. This, in itself, made the dreary, dark
hours more endurable for the boys. As it grew later it was evident by
the frantic pitching of the yacht that a tremendous sea must be running
outside.
From time to time they could hear the rush of heavy feet on the deck
overhead and thought they could catch the sound of hoarse shouts.
“Gracious!” exclaimed Tom, after an unusually heavy lurch had sent
him staggering across the cabin, “there must be a whopper of a storm
outside.”
“Yes, indeed,” agreed Jack, “she’s pitching like a bucking bronco. Wow!
Feel that!”
The _Valkyrie_ appeared to climb heavenward, pause for a thrilling
instant, and then rush down—down—down as if she would never stop.
“Oh-h-h-h-h-h!” groaned Dick in an agony of sea-sickness, “is she going
to the bottom?”
“No danger of that,” responded Jack with a confidence he was far from
feeling, “this old tub has been around the world before now, and an
off-shore gale isn’t going to finish her.”
“Wo-o-f!” groaned Dick, “I wish it would. This is what I get for
snoopin’ around where I have no business to be. Oh-o-o-o-o!”
All at once there came to them, above the uproar and confusion of the
storm, the sound of the “telegraph” at work. Jack was alert in an
instant.
“What is it?” he tapped back.
“The professor says,” came the reply, “that the cabin next to you on
the other side and the one you are now in used to be all one stateroom.
A partition was put in some time ago of which the new crew knows
nothing. It was so fitted that it could be moved out if necessary.
Maybe if you can find out how it works,—he has forgotten,—you can get
out when the time arrives.”
This was news indeed. There was, then, a way of escape out of their
prison if they could find it. But with a moment’s reflection came
another thought.
Even if they did get out, they could do nothing against twenty men
and two officers. But, just the same, Jack made a mental note of the
information, resolving to investigate. A time might come, as his father
had suggested, when they could put it to practical use. That day was to
come sooner than any of them expected.
But until dawn brought light it was useless to think of examining
their prison. The darkness that enveloped them was velvety in its
denseness. Only by a sense of touch could they find their way about.
And so, tossed and tumbled by the violent motion of the yacht, faint
and heart-sick from want of food and doubt as to what was to become
of them, the boys passed the night as best they could. At times they
slept fitfully, only to waken to hear the shrieking of the wind and
experience the sickening plunges of the buffeted yacht.
The first chilly gray light that preceded the dawn was stealing into
the cabin when, without warning, the motion of the engine suddenly
stopped. They felt the yacht struggle like a wounded thing as the seas
broke over her. Then her motion changed. Like a water-logged craft she
began to tumble and roll in the trough of the waves.
“Are we sinking?” cried Tom, wakening from a doze with a start.
“I don’t know what’s happened,” rejoined Jack, “but it looks to me as
if the machinery had broken down.”
“In that case we’re in a mighty bad fix?”
“About as bad as we can be. A few hours longer in the trough of this
sea will break us up and send us to the bottom.”
The boys regarded each other with white, frightened faces. There was
something terrifying in the realization that the yacht had ceased to
struggle with the waves. It was as if, despairing of weathering the
storm, she had given up the struggle.
Suddenly the door was flung open. The form of Medway, shrouded in
dripping oil-skins, stood framed in the doorway. He looked haggard and
worn and, at least so Jack thought, not a little frightened.
“You kids understand machinery?” he asked roughly, holding on to the
door-frame to steady himself against the yacht’s crazy rolls.
“A little,” responded Jack.
“Then come with me, and no monkey tricks if you want to get out of this
alive,” he shot out, brusquely.
“Only you two. Not that red-headed kid,” he added, as all three of the
boys arose to follow him.