WHAT BEFELL IN THE AFTER CABIN.
"Man overboard!"
Bill, making his way along the deck to the wireless room companionway,
heard the thrilling cry and joined the rush of passengers to the stern
rail from whence the shout had come. Radwig and Schultz stood there with
every expression of alarm on their faces.
The captain came hurrying up.
"What is it? What's the matter?" he demanded.
"Somebody fell overboard," declared Radwig; "we heard a splash and
hastened here at once to cut loose a life belt."
"Lower a boat at once," commanded the captain; "slow down the engines."
The petty officer to whom the command had been given, hurried off at top
speed to the bridge while the captain asked more questions of Radwig and
his companion. But they could tell nothing more definite than that they
had heard a splash and a cry and that was all. They had not seen who was
the victim of the accident.
The captain decided to call a roll of passengers and crew at once. While
the boat was lowered, and was rowed to and fro, on the dark waters, this
work went on. When it was over, there was only one person on board found
to be missing. This was, of course, Jack Ready. The cunning of Radwig
had evolved this clever plan to obviate the search that would be surely
made on the ship for the imprisoned young wireless lad when his absence
from duty was discovered. If the lad was believed to be drowned, of
course, no effort would be made to find him on board and he and Schultz
would be safe from the results of their rascality. It was a clever
though simple scheme and it worked to perfection, for after an hour of
investigation the captain was forced to conclude that Jack had, in some
inexplicable manner, fallen overboard and had perished.
But there was one person on board who did not accept this theory, and
that was Bill Raynor. By no figuring could he bring himself to believe
that Jack had fallen into the sea. In the first place, the rail was
almost breast high, and in the second, Jack was too good a sailor to
have lost his head and toppled from the ship.
"I am convinced he'll turn up," he told Mullen in the wireless room.
"Yes, but a thorough search was made for him without result," objected
the other.
"Never mind, something seems to tell me that he is all right," protested
Bill.
"I'm afraid you are deluding yourself," said Mullen, shaking his head.
"When he fell overboard----"
"You mean _if_ he fell overboard," interrupted Bill.
"Why, you surely don't doubt that!" exclaimed Mullen; "a splash is heard
and following that a canvass of the ship shows that Jack Ready is
missing. If he wasn't drowned, where is he?"
"I admit that it sounds like a poser," said Bill. "See here, I'm not
absolutely certain that he did go overboard at all."
"What?" Mullen stared at Raynor as if he thought he had suddenly been
bereft of his senses.
"I mean what I say," repeated Bill slowly. "I'm not sure that he did go
overboard."
"In that case he must be on board the ship."
"Exactly."
"But why should he be hiding?"
"He's not hiding."
"Then why doesn't he show up?"
"Because he's been hidden," replied Bill.
"Oh, that's too fantastic an idea," cried Mullen.
"I know it sounds wild--almost crazy, in fact, but I simply cannot help
feeling it."
"I wish I could think the same way," said Mullen, and the tone of his
voice left no room to doubt that he meant what he said.
In the meantime, how was it with Jack? Confined in the stuffy cabin,
lighted only by the smoky lamp, his head ached intolerably from the
cruel blow that had been dealt him. In fact, it was not till the
following morning that he felt himself again.
Neither of the men who had made him a prisoner came near the cabin in
which he was confined, and although he tried shouting for aid till his
throat was sore, nobody appeared to hear him. The boy began to be
seriously alarmed over his predicament.
Radwig had told him in so many words, that neither he nor Schultz
intended to return to the cabin. The water and bread left him would not
suffice for more than a few hours. By the time the cabin was entered by
some employee of the ship, it was entirely probable that the aid would
come too late. Luckily for him, his mental anguish was not increased by
knowledge of the story of his death by drowning that had circulated
through the ship. Had he known of this, it is likely that, plucky as the
lad was, he would have given way entirely to despair.
The cabin was an inside one, so that there was no porthole through which
he could project his head and call for aid. Examination of the small
chamber, even to the length of pulling up the carpet, showed that there
was no means of escape short of forcing open the door and that Jack,
strong as he was, was unable to accomplish, although he wore out his
muscles trying it.
The hours passed by with dragging feet until it seemed to the boy that
he must have been in the bolted cabin for years instead of hours. The
lamp guttered and went out, leaving him plunged in pitchy darkness. It
was the last straw. Jack flung himself on the bunk and buried his head
in his hands. How long he lay thus he did not know, but he was aroused
and his heart set suddenly in a wild flutter by the sound of approaching
footsteps and voices.
He shouted aloud:
"Help, for heaven's sake, help!"
Then he sat silent, hardly daring to believe that there was a
possibility of his rescue. More probably the voices and footsteps were
those of Radwig and his rascally accomplice.
In an agony of apprehension, Jack sat in the darkness waiting for the
answer to his cry for aid.