The Ocean Wireless Boys and the Lost Liner

At last everything was “hooked up” to Jack’s satisfaction, and he sat himself down at the key. He knew that his wave lengths would not be very heavy nor his radius large, but he calculated on the fact that already this part of the ocean was alive with scout cruisers and warships hunting for the Endymion.

With a beating heart and a choking sensation in his throat, he seized the key. Sam could not speak for excitement and suspense, but leaned breathlessly over his chum’s shoulder.

Downward Jack pressed the key.

A simultaneous shout burst from both boys’ throats. The wireless was alive once more!

A green spark, like an emerald serpent, leaped from point to point of the sender. With swift, practiced fingers Jack began sending abroad the message of disaster and the appeal for rescue.

Almost the entire night passed away without any answer reaching his ears, although he ran the gamut of the wireless tuning board. He began to fear that the current was too weak to reach any of the ships that he knew were scouring the sea for the Endymion, when suddenly, in response to his S.O.S., came a sharp, powerful:

“Yes – Yes – Yes.”

“Oh, glory!” cried Jack. “I’ve got a battleship! I know it by the sending.”

“This is the Tropic Queen,” he flashed out. “We are wrecked on Castle Island. Send help quickly. Rush aid. We are – ”

A loud, terrified cry from Sam interrupted him. Through the door the whole sky could be seen a flaming, lurid red. The stranded ship shook as if in the grip of cruel giant hands. The boys were thrown helter skelter about the sloping cabin floor.

The place gleamed with the glaring, crimson light. A dreadful roaring sound filled their ears. The sands beneath them appeared to heave up and down in sickening waves like those of the unquiet sea.

Then came a vast uproar, and the two terror-stricken boys clawed their way out on the slanting deck. They looked toward the island. The sky above it was blood red. The rugged sky-line of its peaks stood out blackly against the scarlet glare. The air was full of a gas that burned the throat and choked the lungs.

“It’s the volcano!” cried Jack. “The volcano! Look!”

But Sam was clutching the other’s arm and pointing frantically seaward. Rolling toward them, its foaming head crimsoned by the lambent glare of the volcano, was a giant wave.

“Into the wireless room. Quick! For your life!” screamed Jack.

They scrambled up the sloping deck and threw themselves flat on their faces in the coop, clinging to stanchions with a death-like grip. The next instant there was a roar like a thousand Niagaras. They felt the solid fabric of the Tropic Queen lifted dizzily skyward, while tons of water roared down on her. Then there came a sickening crash that shook the boys loose from their grips and sent them rolling about the cabin. The door was burst open and they staggered out on the deck. The Tropic Queen was almost upright now, with her bottom smashed in till she stood flat upon her bare ribs in the soft sand.

Jack could see, by the glare of the burning mountain, the bleak figures of men far up among the rocks. The tidal wave, then, had been seen in time for some of them, at least, to save themselves. He had just time to observe this when before his eyes the sea sucked outward – outward – outward. The ocean floor rose into view, all crimsoned from the flaming volcano. He could see gaunt rocks uncovered for the first time since the creation, perhaps, sticking up blackly in the slimy depths.

And then the sea came back! Out in the far distance across the exposed flats a mighty wave shouldered itself. Its body and huge hollow incurve was black, but its crest was glowing with reflected flame. Jack gave one glance ashore. He could see black figures scuttling high up the rocks.

They had just time to rush into the wireless room, with its steel walls and stout foundations bolted to the iron superstructure, when, with a roar, the mighty wave swept landward. Jack and Sam felt the Tropic Queen lifted and rushed toward the shore, then lifted again and again and again till it seemed impossible that anything man-made could resist the awful force.

But at last the ship grounded with a shuddering, sidewise motion that seemed like a last expiring gasp. The boys ventured forth. The ship was lying on the beach almost at the foot of the cliffs. Her funnels and masts had vanished, snapped off like pipe stems. She lay a sheer, miserable hulk in the flaring light of the volcano.

Seaward, the waves were breaking tumultuously, but the tidal wave had spent its fury. Dizzy, sick and battered the boys made their way over the side of the lost liner and crept up the beach. It was littered with the smashed fragments of the two boats and the remnants of the hastily abandoned camp.

Through the glowing darkness a figure came toward them.

“Great heavens, boys, is it you?” they heard.

“Yes, Captain,” rejoined Jack. “We’ve come ashore.”

“Thank Heaven you are safe! We are all right except for four poor sailors who did not awaken in time. But where have you been? How did you get on board?”

“We swam out,” said Jack simply, “and had just got out a wireless call when the big blow-up came.”

“A wireless call! Are you out of your head, boy?”

“By no means,” said Jack. “We got out a call, and, better still, got an answer. I don’t know what ship it was, but it was a naval craft. I gave our position and then came the tidal wave.”

“It is our only chance,” said the captain. “Both boats were, of course, smashed, and we are marooned till aid comes.”

It was the next night. The disconsolate castaways were huddled near the pathetic wreck of the lost liner. Food had been obtained from on board, so that there was no actual suffering, but the volcano still glared and rumbled and at any moment a disastrous eruption was to be feared.

De Garros and Miss Jarrold stood together apart from the rest.

“And your uncle’s influence over you is broken forever if we ever escape from this?” he was asking.

She nodded.

“That time in Paris when he tried to persuade you to give up the aeronautical plans was when I first began to mistrust him. I never thought I should see you again after our engagement was broken off, but fate has brought us together. It has been like a dream,” she went on. “I think sometimes that he exercised a hypnotic influence over me. But I know it all now and can see things clearly.”

De Garros was about to answer, when suddenly his body stiffened. He pointed to the northern horizon.

“There,” he cried. “Look there!”

His excitement was mounting high.

“See,” he shouted, “that white light! It’s sweeping the sky! What is it?”

Far off, a faint pencil of light swung across the zenith as if on a pivot. It dipped to the horizon, rose again and swung like a radiant pendulum across the sky.

“Signals,” the girl choked out. “It’s a searchlight!”

From the seamen there came a hoarse cheer.

“It’s a battleship! She’s signaling!” shouted Jack in a voice that shook. “It’s Morse!”

He took a long breath or two. Then he choked out the message that was flung on the sky.

“Courage! We are coming!”

And then pandemonium broke loose. Under the glaring sky, seamen danced and shouted and the other members of the party shook hands. Only Jarrold stood silent and aloof, looking at his niece and De Garros. It was as if he knew that his hold over her was broken forever, and that the approaching warships, speeding to the rescue, meant for him shackles and iron bars.

The scene shifts to Colon harbor. Into port are steaming the Birmingham, scout cruiser, and the Wasp, torpedo destroyer, the craft that rescued the castaways of Castle Island. Already by wireless the story of the lost liner and the wonderful resourcefulness of Jack Ready and Sam Smalley has gone out to the world. Big crowds are waiting to meet the rescuing warships. Among them are the military attachés to whom Colonel Minturn, thanks to Jack, will be able to hand the Panama documents so nearly lost forever.

At the stern of the Wasp, under the ensign, are standing Jarrold’s niece and De Garros. He is telling her that Colonel Minturn has promised to intercede for her uncle, and that in all probability he will be deported with a warning never to tread American soil again, in place of being imprisoned. Nations do not care to advertise their troubles with international spies, if it can be avoided.

Jack and Sam, on board the Birmingham, stand happily by the wireless operator of the cruiser. He is taking a message. Presently he turns to them.

“Some news that will interest you, fellows,” he says. “All the boats from the Tropic Queen have been picked up, without the loss of a single passenger.”

“Good work!” exclaim the two listeners heartily.