CHAPTER XIX

A CALL IN THE NIGHT

Sapphire days of steaming through deep blue tropic seas beneath a cloudless sky passed by dreamily. The _Tropic Queen_ was now in the Caribbean, rolling lazily southward through azure water flecked with golden patches of gulf weed—looking like marine golden-rod. Fleeing flocks of flying fish scuttered over the water as the steamer’s sharp bow nosed into the stuff, like a covey of partridges rising from cover before a sportsman’s gun.

To Jack and Sam, making their first voyage in these waters, everything was new and fascinating. They never tired of leaning over the rail, watching the different forms of marine life that were to be seen almost every moment.

Jack had succeeded in attaching a bell to the wireless apparatus, which, while it did not sound powerfully when a wireless wave beat against the antennæ, yet answered its purpose so long as they were in the vicinity of the wireless room. Jack had hopes, in time, of perfecting a device which would give a sharp, insistent ring and awaken even the soundest sleeper. The boy knew that on many small steamers only one wireless operator is, from motives of economy, carried. When such an operator is asleep, therefore, the wireless “ears” of his ship are deaf. But with an alarm bell, such as Jack hoped to bring to perfection, there would be no danger of the man’s not awakening in time to avert what might prove to be grave disaster.

They now began to steam past small islands, bare, desolate spots for the most part, but surrounded by waters clear as crystal and gleaming like jewels. Some of them were covered with a sparse sort of brush, but generally they were mere specks of sand in a glowing sea of azure.

One evening Jack was sitting at the key, when through the air there came, beating at his ears, a wireless summons. Such messages were common enough and the boy languidly, for the night was stiflingly hot, reached out a hand for his pencil in order to jot down whatever might be coming.

But the next instant he was sitting bolt upright, sending out with strong, nervous fingers a crashing reply to the message that had come to him.

“To any ship in vicinity,” it read. “Send us a boat-load of provisions and water or we shall perish.”

“Who are you?” flashed Jack’s key in reply.

Feebly, as if the supply of juice was running low, the mysterious sender of the urgent appeal sent back his answer.

“The Sombrero Island Light. The monthly provision boat has not arrived from the mainland. We are almost destitute.”

Jack looked up at his wireless map. Sure enough, on a tiny speck of land not far off, was marked in blue, with a red star, the location of the island light, the coloring denoting that, like many modern lighthouses, it was equipped with wireless.

“How many of you are there?” inquired Jack’s radio.

“Two. But my partner, an old man, is bedridden from suffering. I have not slept for many nights and am almost exhausted.”

“Keep up your courage,” rejoined Jack, “and I’ll see what I can do.”

He hurried forward with his message to the bridge. He found the captain taking his ease in slippers and pajamas outside the sacred precincts of his cabin. Jack told him briefly about the communication he had had, and then handed the skipper the notes he had made of the radio conversation.

The captain looked annoyed. A frown furrowed his forehead.

“Confound it all,” he muttered, “I was making up my mind for a record run and this means delay. But we can’t neglect to aid those unfortunates who are probably suffering the pangs of hunger and thirst at this very moment.”

He paused as if reflecting, while Jack stood by respectfully. The captain had not dismissed him, and the boy judged that he was considering some plan.

“Come into the chart room,” he said presently; and Jack followed him through a doorway into the chart room where the sea-maps were stowed neatly away in overhead racks.

The captain took down one. Jack saw that it showed the Caribbean. With a brown forefinger the captain checked off the course of the _Tropic Queen_ and her present whereabouts, as marked that day by the chief officer when the log was written up.

“No chance of getting this ship anywhere within ten miles of the island,” he said, after he had examined the soundings carefully. “It is one of the worst places charted in these seas.”

“You mean it is unapproachable, sir?” asked Jack.

“Yes, to a degree. It is surrounded by shoals and reefs. It would be suicide to try to navigate a ship of this size amongst them.”

“What can be done then, sir?” asked Jack, who knew that he would have to send a reply to the lighthouse keepers.

“We shall be about twenty miles to the east of the island early to-morrow morning,” said the captain. “You may inform them that I shall send off a boat and perhaps the doctor, if I can spare him.”

“Very well, sir.”

Jack started away, but then lingered.

“Well, what is it?”

The captain swung around in his chair and looked at the boy who hesitated in the doorway.

“I—I wondered if it would be possible for me to go along with the boat, sir?” asked Jack haltingly. There was something very disconcerting in that direct glance of the captain’s.

“In the boat, you mean?”

“Yes, sir. You see they have wireless there. I might be of some use. I——”

“There, don’t bother to make excuses,” laughed the captain good-humoredly. “You really want to go for the sake of the trip, don’t you?”

“Well, I——” began Jack, feeling rather foolish at having his mind read so unerringly.

“Will your assistant stand watch if I let you go? The ship must not be left without a wireless man.”

“Sam will stay, sir,” rejoined Jack. “It is his watch, anyway.”

“All right, then, consider it settled. Cut along now and send out that message. Those poor devils must be waiting eagerly for it.”

“Very well, sir, and thank you,” exclaimed the delighted Jack.

“Don’t thank me,” said the captain, with a gruffness that a twinkle in his eye betrayed. “I heard before you joined the ship that you had a faculty for rushing in where you had no business to be, and now I see that I was not misinformed.”