Fortunately, there was no ray of light visible about the _Vagrant_. The
incandescents had been switched off in every part of her, with the
exception of the engine room. In this compartment Tom, by some
inspiration, had closed the deadlights, and therefore not a gleam of
light leaked out to betray the whereabouts of the craft.
“Do you think the _Tarantula_ will cross the bar to-night?” asked Jack
presently.
“I don’t imagine so,” was the rejoinder. “They wouldn’t be idiots enough
to take such a chance as that on this tide. No, if you ask me, we’ve got
the night ahead of us till the first streak of daylight.”
“Good enough,” said Jack, with much inward satisfaction; “and now, I’ve
been thinking, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for me to keep watch by the
wireless. It’s likely enough that Herrera will try to send a message to
his plantation up the river, provided he’s managed to get his apparatus
repaired.”
“I’ve been thinking that, too,” said Tom. “I’ll go below and start up
the generator.”
“You might as well,” said Jack, “although I don’t think that we’ll send
out any messages to-night. Our job is to catch what we can from the
air.”
While Tom hastened to the engine-room to start up the dynamo. Jack made
his way to the cabin, accompanied by Ned Bangs. Captain Andrews and Jupe
remained on watch on deck.
Seating himself at the wireless table. Jack adjusted the head band,
placed the receivers at his ears, and then threw the switch for
receiving. Ned, in the meantime, had run up the wireless mast with its
slender antennæ, or aerials.
This done, Ned rejoined his chum, seating himself beside him. After an
interval he spoke.
“Anything yet?”
“No; silent as the grave. Suppose you go on deck and see what Captain
Andrews and Jupe have observed.”
Ned was back from his errand in a short space of time. His face bore a
well-pleased grin, as Jack could see in the light of the solitary
incandescent which illumined the cabin, the shades having, of course,
been drawn across the portholes before it was switched on.
“Well?” questioned Jack.
“Well,” echoed Ned, “everything is going famously. The light stopped
moving outside the bar, and presently Captain Andrews heard the rattle
of her anchor chains as she let go her mud-hooks. Everything has been
quiet since.”
“Too quiet. I wish——”
Jack broke off suddenly, holding up a hand to Ned to command silence.
Out of space the electric waves were beginning to break against the
aerials above. The _Tarantula_ was talking to some one on shore in a
rapid stream of dots and dashes. Jack’s hand flew across the recording
pad. As before, the paper was soon covered with figures—the code which
Tom had exploded.
After half an hour, during which his hand had frequently sought the
tuning apparatus. Jack’s labors ceased; but his face bore a radiant
expression.
“The message had a lot in it about us, and my father and the rest,” he
said. “They did not codify our names, but spelled them right out. That’s
how I know. They——”
“Hadn’t you better listen in case there’s any more coming?” asked Ned.
“No; they’re through for to-night. They exchanged the good-bye signal.
Now to find Tom and get him to translate this jumble of figures.”
But Tom, after expending a lot of fruitless labor on the papers,
declared he could make nothing of them.
“Maybe they’ve changed the code, or maybe——”
“They’ve been using Spanish this time,” exclaimed Jack, struck by a
happy inspiration.
“Cracky! I’ll bet that’s just what they have been doing,” cried Ned.
“Say, fellows, you just copy out those messages while I get Captain
Andrews below in two shakes of a duck’s tail.”
He bounded off up the companion way, while Tom busily transcribed. So
fast did he work that he had a lot of words written out when the skipper
appeared.
“So you’ve been catching something out of the air, have you?” he asked
as he entered the cabin.
“Yes; and I guess it’s important, too,” declared Jack, “but you’ll have
to translate Tom’s notes. Captain, because it’s all in Spanish.”
“That will be simple enough,” said Captain Andrews, sitting down and
drawing toward him the scattered sheets which Tom had already rendered
from the figures of the code.
The veteran seaman began stolidly to con over the Spanish words, not all
of which, owing to Tom’s unfamiliarity with the language, were written
in correct form. But before long his composed attitude gave way to
excitement.
“Jove, lads!” he exclaimed, “this wireless is a wonderful thing. It’s
tipped off that greaser’s hand to us in great shape. He——”
“Wait till you get the whole message and then you can read it out to
us,” suggested Jack.
Both the sailor and Tom worked like beavers at their task, and ere long
Captain Andrews leaned back in his chair and announced that he was ready
to read the messages as he had translated them.
As he had hinted, they caused a sensation. Herrera had wirelessed his
plantation, and after a short interval had received a reply. He,—or,
rather, his operator,—then proceeded to relate all that had occurred;
and told,—the boys had to smile at this,—how the accursed gringos had
tricked them by some sort of hypnotism!
However, so the message ran on, the capable Senor Herrera had managed to
rally his men on their recovery from the spell of witchcraft, and had
speedily organized a force to repair the damaged machinery and wireless
apparatus. This done, all speed had been made at once for the coast
whither, as they guessed, the gringos had preceded them.
“Well, Herrera’s, man ashore soon informed them on board the _Tarantula_
that such was the case,” continued Captain Andrews, “and gave him a
full, true and particular account of how they stopped us with that chain
and that fusillade. He told Herrera that he had confined the gringos in
one of the buildings used for the hemp crushers, and that they were as
safe as if they were in a safe deposit vault. Friend Herrera then
congratulated him on his astuteness, and said that he would run the bar
first thing in the morning, only stopping, by the way, to blow the
_Vagrant_ out of the water and send us all to Kingdom Come.”
“Reckon he’s got another guess coming on that,” grinned Ned Bangs,
looking at Jack.
“I hope so,” said that lad; “but now that we are in possession of these
facts it’s up to us to move quickly. Captain, do you think we can find
that branch creek in the night?”
“We’ve got to,” was the grim response, “if we don’t want to part with
the good old _Vagrant_, and I’d hate to lose any ship I’ve trod the deck
of.”
“Then, let’s up anchor and get out of here,” said Jack.
“Intercepting that wireless,” he went on, “has taken one great load off
my mind. We know that those we are in search of are safe, and we know,
in addition, that they are confined in one of the hemp-making
buildings.”
“And that’s a whole lot important to us right now,” supplemented Captain
Andrews. “Whole campaigns have been won with less knowledge of the
enemy’s country than we have.”
They went on deck. Outside the bar a light showed where the _Tarantula_
lay at anchor. Herrera must have been chuckling to himself at that very
instant. According to his knowledge of the situation, he had his foes
completely “bottled up.” All that remained for him to do was to capture
them and attain possession; of the coveted precious stones at his
leisure.
While the Mexican was pondering such thoughts as these and nursing his
revenge, the company of the _Vagrant_ were busy,—very busy.
It was too risky a thing to chance making the noise that raising the
anchor would have caused. So the cable was slashed and the engine
started with the underwater exhaust in operation. Noiselessly the little
craft glided up the stream and then turned her nose toward the bank. A
break in the line of trees, showing against the star-sprinkled sky, gave
the location of the creek mouth, and, feeling his way with the utmost
caution, Captain Andrews drove his temporary command into it. It was
driving, in a literal sense, for the brush and trees overhung the creek
so densely that the _Vagrant_ had to push her way among them. When she
had proceeded about a hundred yards up the stream she was masked from
the view of the river with complete effectiveness.
“Glory be!” sighed Jupe, in a voice of intense relief, when Captain
Andrews ordered the second anchor “let go.”