A CALL FOR HELP.
Jack’s fingers shook with excitement and suspense as he took his seat
again at the instrument and began searching the air for a clue to the
mysterious sender of the frantic summons.
Every fiber of the adventurous strain in his being responded to this
call for succor from the unknown. Impatiently he waited for more to come
beating at the drums of his receivers. But for a long time he heard
nothing.
Then, faintly and hesitatingly, there volleyed through the air some
figures. Latitude and longitude, Jack guessed them to be, but they were
so feebly sent and so jumbled, that in themselves they argued eloquently
the stress of the sender.
Then came a frantic appeal that set Jack’s pulses to throbbing:
“Help! S.O.S.!”
Then silence shut down again. The captain appeared in the doorway.
“Well?” he said interrogatively. “Anything more?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jack, handing him the figures he had jotted down; “he’s
been trying to send us his latitude and longitude, I think. Can you make
this out?”
The commander scanned the figures and then gave an impatient snort.
“Confound that wireless lunatic!”
“What is it, sir? Are the figures no good?”
“Good! I should think not. This latitude and longitude would put that
ship somewhere up near Albany!”
The captain was irritated. His long vigil on the bridge had told upon
him.
“Confound it all,” he broke out testily, “if that fellow wants us to
come after him, why the dickens can’t he send some plain facts?”
“His current is very weak, sir. I can hardly hear the messages,”
volunteered Jack.
“Well, stand by, my boy, and report to me the instant you get anything
more,” said the captain. “It’s just like the luck. Here we are stove in
like an old egg-shell, and there’s not another ship they can pick on for
help but us.”
Under the circumstances the captain’s irritation was perhaps natural.
The _Ajax_ had already been delayed by the fog, and she was owned by a
corporation that expected its ships to run on time. Furthermore, her
injuries would cause her to limp along at a snail’s pace; and now, on
the top of all this, had come an appeal for help that could not be
disregarded, but which gave no facts or figures whatever!
“Who are you?—Who are—you?—Who are you?”
This was the message that went crashing out from the sender of the
_Ajax_.
The aerials took up the question and spread it abroad to all the winds
of heaven, but not the faintest whisper came back from the ether to tell
that the words had been caught.
Then, with the suddenness of lightning, came another startling appeal.
“Fire is spreading. Ship being abandoned. Help!”
It was maddening to sit there and listen to these futile prayers for
succor without being able to do a thing to reply to them.
“Why, oh why, won’t he send his position?” sighed Jack; and again he
sent a frantic query volleying along the air waves.
But the receiver remained as silent as the void itself. Not the faintest
scratching of an invalid fly’s footsteps came to reward Jack’s
vigilance.
Before he could report his failure to the captain that dignitary was
back again. He was fairly bubbling with impatience.
“It’s enough to drive a man mad,” he growled. “They must be a crew of
lunatics on that ship. I never heard of anything like it. Oh, I’d like
to drum some sense into their fool heads!”
“Hullo! Wait a jiffy!” cried Jack, startled out of his customary
deference. “By the great horn spoon, here comes something now!”
The captain’s burly form bent over the slim body of the young operator
as Jack’s nimble fingers flew over the receiving pad. He was excited and
made no effort to hide it, although his long years at sea had taught him
that nothing was too wildly improbable to occur on the great deep.
But that he should have collided with an iceberg and another ship within
his wireless zone should be simultaneously on fire appeared to be almost
without the pale of possibilities.
“Ah! Figures at last!” he said, as Jack jotted down a lot of numerals.
“Great Scott!” he shouted a moment later, “those figures put her within
forty miles of us to the southwest!”
“Hold on, sir, here’s some more!” warned Jack.
The diaphragms crackled and tapped as a hail of dots and dashes beat
against them like surf from the electric ocean. The sending was stronger
now from the doomed vessel, wherever and whatever she was.
“This is the yacht _Halcyon_, New York for the Azores. Owner and son on
board. For Heaven’s sake, send help! This may be good-bye.”
“Thunder and lightning!” roared the captain, more excited than Jack had
ever seen him. “This is news! Why, the _Halcyon_ is Mr. Jukes’ yacht!”
The pencil dropped from Jack’s nerveless fingers and he sat back,
gasping at this extraordinary intelligence.
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