The Ocean Wireless Boys on War Swept Seas

He got no further. There was another burst of smoke, a quick, lightning-like flash and the same screech of a projectile. But this time, accompanying the sound of the report, was a sound of tearing metal and the ship shook as if she had struck on the rocks.

“The after funnel,” cried Jack, pointing to a jagged hole in the smoke stack.

“The next one may come closer,” choked out Bill rather shakily.

On the lower decks there was the wildest confusion. Women were fainting and the stewards and petty officers had all they could do to handle the frightened throngs. The striking of the funnel was the occasion for an angry and badly scared deputation to wait upon the captain and demand that he stop the ship at once.

But the deputation did not reach the bridge. They were met at the foot of the stairway leading to it by a polite but firm officer who informed them that under no circumstances would the captain tolerate any interference with his method of running the ship.

A third shot, which went wide, closely followed the one that had struck the after funnel. It flew high above them and caused Jack to observe:

“I don’t believe they mean to hit the hull, but only to scare the captain into heaving the boat to.”

“Looks that way,” agreed Bill, “and as for the scare part of it, I guess they’ve succeeded, so far as everybody is concerned but Captain Rollok and his officers.”

“We are gaining on zee cruiser without a doubt,” asserted de Garros, whose eyes had been fixed on the pursuing sea fighter for some minutes.

“Yes, but look, there comes another,” cried Jack, suddenly, pointing astern. “That must be the one Poffer heard signaling to the Berwick.”

“We’re in for it now,” said Bill. “I wish that pig-headed captain would heave to and let them take the gold and the Germans, if that’s all they are after.”

“Hullo!” exclaimed Jack, suddenly, as they all stood waiting nervously to see the next flash and puff from the cruiser’s turret. “I can see a gleam of hope for us. See what’s ahead!”

Ahead of them the sea appeared to be giving off clouds of steam as if it was boiling. As yet this vapor had not risen high, but it was rapidly making a curtain above the sunny waters.

“Fog!” cried Bill, delightedly.

“It cannot be too thick for me,” said de Garros.

“Perhaps Captain Rollok foresaw this and that was why he refused to halt,” said Jack. “Certainly, if we can gain that mist bank before we get badly injured, we’ll be all right.”

It was now a race for the thickening fog curtains. The cruisers appeared to realize that if the Kronprinzessin could gain the shelter of the mist, there would be but small chance of their capturing her. Increased smoke tumbling from their funnels showed that they were under forced draught. But as their speed increased so did that of the “gold ship.”

The gun boomed again on the Berwick, the foremost of the pursuers. The projectile struck the stern of the liner and knocked the elaborate gilt work wreathing, her name and port, into smithereens.

“Aiming at the rudder,” commented Jack. “That’s a good idea from their point of view.”

“But a mighty bad one from ours if they succeed in hitting it,” said Raynor, with a rather sickly laugh.

Two more shots, one of them from the second cruiser, flew above the fugitive liner and then the mist began to settle round her swiftly-driven hull in soft, cottony wreaths. In five minutes more the fog had shut in all about her.

Then ensued a game of marine blind-man’s buff. Captain Rollok, having steamed at full speed some miles through the fog, – and this time there were no protests from passengers, – altered his course and deliberately steamed in circles.

“Hark!” exclaimed Jack, during one of these manœuvers. “What was that?”

Out in the fog somewhere they could hear a sound like the soft beating of a huge heart. It was the throbbing of another vessel’s engines. To the fear of the chase now was added the peril of collision, for in the fog, dense as it was, the captain would not permit the siren to be sounded.

It was almost impossible to tell from which direction the sound was proceeding. It seemed to be everywhere. Was it another peaceful vessel like themselves, or a man-of-war? Much depended on the answer to this question.

All at once, with startling distinctness, a huge black bulk loomed up alongside them. Through the fog they caught a sudden glimpse of crowded decks and great guns projecting from grim-looking turrets. It was one of the British cruisers. By grim irony, the fog had delivered them into the hands of their pursuers.

“Great Scott, it’s all off now!” cried Bill, as they simultaneously sensed the identity of the other craft.

CHAPTER VIII

LAND HO!

But the strange cruise of the Kronprinzessin Emilie was not destined to come to an end then, although, for an instant, it appeared so. Whether the Britisher was mutually astonished, and in the confusion the right orders were not given, or whatever the cause was, before they had more than glimpsed her grim, dogged outlines, she faded away in the fog and was blotted out.

“Phew! A few more close shaves like that and I’d be looking in the mirror to see if my hair hasn’t turned gray,” said Jack.

“I wonder they didn’t take some action,” commented Bill, “although I’m glad they didn’t.”

“Perhaps zey was so astonished zey forgot to fire zee gun,” suggested de Garros.

“I guess that was it,” agreed Jack, “but just the same it was a mighty lucky thing for us they didn’t come to their senses sooner.”

“Yes, this thing of playing tag in the fog gets on my nerves,” muttered Bill.

By nightfall, they had steamed through the fog belt, but every eye was anxiously turned astern as if their owners expected at any moment to see the ram-shaped bows of the black British sea bulldogs come poking put of the mist.

But nothing of the sort happened, however, though late that night, far to the eastward of their course, they could see the glowing fingers of the cruisers’ searchlights pointing in every direction across the sea. The next day passed without any untoward happenings, and when, the morning following, Jack gazed from the wireless coop he saw, in the first faint light of dawn, that they were steaming along a strange, unfamiliar, rugged coast.

By the time the passengers were astir, the outlines of the coast had become dotted with cottages and houses, and in the midst of breakfast they steamed into a harbor, and the anchor was dropped with a roar and a rumble. Like a flash, the tables in the saloon were deserted. There was a general rush for the deck.

“Why, that house over there looks just like my home at Bar Harbor,” cried one woman.

Ten minutes later her words were confirmed. It was Bar Harbor, Maine, into which the sorely-harried liner had taken refuge under the neutral protection of the Stars and Stripes. Not daring to run into New York or Boston, the captain had selected the world-famous summer resort as a harbor that the English cruisers would be the least likely to watch, and his judgment proved sound. And so ended the cruise of the “gold ship,” in whose strange adventures the boys were ever proud of having participated. An hour after the great liner’s arrival, she was almost deserted by her passengers who were choking the telegraph wires with messages.

The wireless disseminated far and wide the news of her safe arrival, and they learned, ashore, that for days the fate of the “gold ship” had been the puzzle of the country. All sorts of wild guesses had been printed as to her whereabouts. She had been reported off the coast of Scotland and again in the English Channel. One rumor had it that she had been captured, another that she had been sunk and most of those on board lost.

Not one of these guesses, however wild or probable, came within striking distance of the extraordinary truth of the “gold ship’s” flight across the war-swept seas. The day after their arrival, and while the town was still seething with excitement over the great liner’s presence in the harbor, Jack received a telegram at the hotel where he, Raynor and de Garros had taken up temporary quarters. The message was from Mr. Jukes and read as follows:

“Learned by the papers of your safe return. Kindly call at my office as soon as possible after your arrival in New York. Important.”

“What’s in the wind now?” exclaimed Jack to Bill Raynor, who was with him when he got the message.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said Raynor; “but I have a sort of notion in the back of my head that your vacation is over.”

“If you can call it a vacation,” laughed Jack.

“Well then, perhaps experience would be a better word,” substituted Bill, also laughing.

That evening, arrangements having been made about the shipment of their baggage to New York, the boys and the young French aviator obtained their tickets from an agent of the steamship company, for the line was bearing all expenses, and took a night train for home.

Almost as soon as they reached the city, Jack visited Mr. Jukes’ office.

“Thank goodness you’ve come, Ready!” he exclaimed as soon as he had shaken hands with the lad, upon whom, since their adventures in the South Seas, he strangely came to rely; “the St. Mark sails to-morrow for Europe. I don’t know yet, in the middle of this European muddle, just what ports she will touch at. That must be settled by her captain later on.”