THE RESCUE OF MR. JUKES.
“How did the fire happen?” asked Mr. Brown of the wireless man of the
_Halcyon_ as they rowed back to the ship, for the wind had now entirely
dropped.
“Well, it all came about so blessed quickly that I doubt if anyone knows
just what the start of it was,” came the reply. “The skipper thought he
could fight it (Here Mr. Brown nodded knowingly to Jack as if to say, “I
told you so”), and we battled with it for a long time. The fire affected
my dynamos, I guess, for my current was miserably weak.”
“I noticed that, all right,” said Jack.
“But you caught it though. Lucky for us you did. Well, to continue. The
old man,—Mr. Jukes, I mean, was furious. He wouldn’t hear of abandoning
the ship.
“He wanted to fight the fire to the last moment. But he sent his son off
in a boat. The fog had lifted a bit, and we thought it would be no job
at all to pick them up. But then the smother shut down again, and when
it lifted and we were forced to leave the ship, there wasn’t a sign of
that boat high or low.”
The prostrate figure of Mr. Jukes, who had been sedulously attended by
the sailors, stirred lightly and he gave a moan. Suddenly he sat bolt
upright.
The sight of him gave Jack a shock. Was this bedraggled, pallid,
soot-smeared scarecrow the once pompous and lordly head of the Titan
Steamship Company’s activities?
Yes, it was Mr. Jukes, sure enough. He sat up and asked in a hoarse,
husky voice:
“Where’s Tom?”
“He’s in the other boat, Mr. Jukes,” said one of the sailors soothingly.
“He’s all right.”
“Yes, but where is the other boat? What boat is this?”
“By a strange coincidence, Mr. Jukes,” said Jack, “it is one of the
boats from your tanker, the _Ajax_. Don’t you know me, Jack Ready? I
picked up your wireless call for aid.”
“Oh yes, yes, I know you now,” said the magnate dully. “But my boy Tom,
where is he? I want him.”
Some of the men were whispering.
“What’s that I hear?” said Mr. Jukes, turning quickly on them. “Tom
adrift? Adrift in that boat? Look for him. Find him, I tell you. Oh,
Tom, my boy! my boy! I didn’t mean to desert you!”
Jack patted him on the shoulder as he might have a companion in
misfortune. Gone now was the lordly, magnificent air of the head of the
steamship combine. Mr. Jukes was simply a sorrowing parent, crushed by
his misfortunes.
But in a minute his old domineering manner came back.
“You are in my employ, every one of you!” he shouted. “Find my boy!”
Mr. Brown shook his head.
“It’s almost dark, sir, and you yourself are badly in need of
attention.”
“What, you will abandon him?” shouted the magnate.
The unfortunate mate looked sorely puzzled.
“It would be useless to look for him now, sir,” he said. “To-morrow,
perhaps, by daylight.”
“To-morrow,” groaned Mr. Jukes.
“Don’t worry, sir. He’ll turn up all right,” said Mr. Brown consolingly.
“Oh, if I could only think so!” burst out the man of millions. “But to
think of my boy, my Tom, out on this desolate sea! Lost in an open boat!
How shall I ever face his mother?”
“He’ll be all right, sir,” was all that the mate could repeat.
“If we don’t pick them up, some other ship will,” added Jack.
It was a hard lesson that Mr. Jukes was learning. He was finding out
that money cannot buy everything. All his millions were as dross to him
at that moment.
“How can I face my friends?” he muttered presently. “I am saved and Tom
is gone! How can I explain to his mother? Oh, if it had only been me in
his place!”
Then suddenly his rage turned on Jack.
“You boy! You, whom I tried to help! Why are you here and my boy gone?
How is it you are safe and sound, and my son is lost?”
“I’m as sorry as I can be, Mr. Jukes,” said Jack. “If there was anything
I could do, I’d do it gladly, and you know it.”
“Bah-h-h-h-h!” was the contemptuous reply.
But Jack kept his temper.
“I’d stay out here a week, sir,” he said, “if that would do any good.”
But the half-crazed man only snarled at him and sat silent, till the
welcome sight of the _Ajax’s_ rockets and flares showed them that they
were nearing the ship.
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