OUT OF THE DARK.
"It's no use. They are too fast for us."
Jeff Trulliber spoke from the bridge of the _Sea Ranger_, some hours
after the chase across the waters of Lake Huron had begun.
"It does look that way," said Tom, with a sigh, gazing after the
cloud of smoke on the horizon which, fast as the _Sea Ranger_ was
urged, never appeared to get any closer.
"The rascals!" exclaimed Professor Podsnap, shaking his fist at the
smoke cloud.
The events of the past few hours had transformed the man of science
from an abstracted, dreamy individual, into quite a warlike,
ferocious being. He could talk of nothing but the vengeance he would
like to wreak on Walstein and Dampier had he them in his power.
"Dinnah am sub'bed! Dinnah am sub'bed! Dinnah am sub'bed!"
It was the voice of Rosewater, speaking, as usual, in "threes."
"I haven't much appetite, but I suppose we had better eat something,"
said Tom. "Jeff, you and the professor go first. I'll take the
wheel. The engines won't need watching for a while."
Jeff was about to expostulate and urge Tom, who looked tired and
jaded, to go to the table, but he suddenly recollected that the
eldest Dacre lad was now, to all intents and purposes, the captain of
the _Sea Ranger_.
So, with an "aye! aye, sir!" and a touch of his cap, he hastened off
with the professor to the comfortable cabin astern. Rosewater,
considering the short time he had been on board, had certainly
performed wonders in the culinary department. The table was properly
spread with linen and silver, and while we are not going to describe
the meal in detail, it was as good as could have been obtained in any
city hotel.
But, to the disappointment of the black, who hovered solicitously
over their chairs, neither his master nor the professor ate much.
Their conversation was more limited than their appetites. The strain
under which they were laboring was beginning to tell on them.
Nor did Tom, when he in his turn took his place at the table, display
any more ability as a trencherman. He knew the cruel, desperate
characters of the men who had captured Sandy and Jack too well to
hope for any good treatment for his brother and his chum. On the
contrary, he did not know to what sufferings they might be put by
their brutal captors, especially as Tom's own escape must have
enraged Walstein and Dampier to the point of madness.
He speculated a good deal as to whether the two rascals had carried
out their intention of writing a letter to his uncle, demanding
ransom. It seemed probable, but in the rush of events that was
coincident with the _Sea Ranger's_ departure from Rockport, Tom had
no opportunity to find out. He had, however, ascertained that there
was a wireless station there, and at various other points along the
lakes, and he promised himself that, at the first opportunity, he
would take advantage of this, to send Mr. Dacre a wireless message.
"I only wish we had had the _Sea Ranger_ so equipped," mused Tom, who
had taken considerable interest in wireless at school, "I'm a pretty
fair sender and receiver myself, and if we'd only had an apparatus I
could have used it to advantage right now. For instance, I could
have sent out 'a general alarm' for those ruffians on the tug."
Tom's meal, as may be supposed, did not take long, and he soon left
the table, which caused Rosewater to remark, sotto voce:
"Dat boy am grievin'! dat boy am grievin'! dat boy suttinly am
grievin', when he kin jes look at candied sweet potatoes an' say 'not
to-day, fank you'!"
During the afternoon the same relative distances between the two
craft were maintained. But, as the sun grew lower, and hues of
copper and gold began to spread over the water Tom, on a visit to the
deck from his vigil over the engines, noted, with keen joy, that they
seemed to be gaining a trifle.
"I'll try and squeeze a bit more speed out of her," he promised,
diving below and exercising all his engineering ability to coax even
a half a knot more out of the laboring motors.
"How about it now?" he inquired, coming on deck again a few moments
later.
"Better and better," exclaimed Jeff exultingly, "I can almost make
out the outlines of the tug now. My! but she's burning coal!"
"She needs to," said Tom grimly, "if I ever get my hands on those
chaps!"
But darkness fell, and the grim race still kept on.
It was one of those black nights that sometimes come in summer, when
the darkness is like a velvety pall. There is no need to describe
the chagrin of our friends.
"Maybe she'll show a light," said Jeff cheerily, "we were close
enough to her when the dark shut in to see it if she does."
"But she won't," said Tom bitterly, "you may depend on that."
"What! she'll risk running Mackinac--we must be off there
now,--without lights?"
"Those fellows would risk anything to keep out of the clutches of the
law," rejoined Tom positively, "mark my words, they'll run the
Straits without showing a glimmer."
"They are taking desperate chances."
"Such rascals as they are have been taking desperate chances all
their lives," put in the professor gravely.
"Well, how about us, Tom?" asked Jeff after supper--a meal eaten with
little more appetite than dinner,--"are we going to keep on?"
"I suppose so. I don't know that it is much use, though. In this
darkness we are as likely to get miles off our course as we are to
stick to their heels."
"I wish there were some way of making the daylight twenty-four hours
long when you wanted it to be," said Jeff impatiently, peering ahead
with his hands on the wheel.
"We'd have to be further north for that," said the professor, "to the
north pole almost."
"Well, we'll go there, if necessary, to rescue Jack and Sandy,"
declared Tom, with firm conviction.
In the darkness the professor reached for Tom's hand and found it.
He wrung it warmly. Adversity brings men and boys wondrous close.
"That's the talk, Tom Dacre," he said heartily, quite dropping his
pedagogic air and speaking simply and strongly. "Although Providence
may sometimes seem to favor rascals, never fear but that in the end
she is on the side of honest men."
"Dat's jus' what ah ses, sah, when dey excuses me of stealin' dat ole
Shanghai rooster down in Barbadoes," struck in Rosewater, who
happened to be close by, "ah ses, 'Ah is white as de dribben snow,
yo' wushup.' I nebber done go fo' ter steal no chickens nohow. Ah
was jes'-- Fo' de lub ob Moses, wha' am dat!"
The _Sea Ranger_, for the second time on that trip, struck something,
with a harsh, grating sound.
Rosewater was thrown flat on his back and rolled off the bridge,
bumping down the steps like a sack of potatoes. The others only
saved themselves by clutching at the rail with might and main.
"We've struck something!" shouted the professor.
"Back her!" yelled Jeff, madly spinning his wheel over. Tom had
darted below at the instant of the crash, and set the reverse levers.
Already the _Sea Ranger_ began to swing backward. But her movements
were slow, almost like those of a crippled animal.
"Hey, there!" hailed a fresh, youthful voice out of the darkness
ahead, "what have we hit?"
"Well, what do you think you've hit?" bellowed Jeff indignantly, "an
ice-cream parlor?"