The Ocean Wireless Boys on War Swept Seas

“Yes.”

“Are you going to expose him?”

“Expose him to whom?”

“The captain, for instance.”

“What would be the good? He has committed no crime. If he wants to travel under a false name that is not our business so long as he does not interfere with us.”

“That’s true, but just the same, if we are boarded by another British cruiser, I’ll have something to whisper in the boarding officer’s ear,” said Bill, truculently.

“I wish we knew who this Schultz was,” confessed Jack.

“Does that name appear on the passenger lists?”

“On none of them. Besides, if it had, the man would have been questioned by that officer from the Berwick. He quizzed everybody with a name that even sounded German.”

“That’s so,” admitted Bill; “he certainly went through the ship with a rake. I guess old Earwig’s friend has some American sounding name that will carry him safe across the ocean no matter what happens.”

Soon after, Jack sought his berth in the wireless room. As he approached the opened door of the radio station, from which a flood of yellow light issued, he saw, or thought he saw, two lurking figures in the shadow of one of the boats. But even as he sighted them, they vanished.

For an instant, Jack assumed that they were two of the boat crew but, as they scurried past an open port, he saw they wore ordinary clothes and not the sailor uniforms of the crew.

“Odd,” he mused. “Those fellows were certainly hanging around the wireless room for no good purpose. If they had been, they wouldn’t have sneaked the instant they saw me coming. I’m willing to bet a cookie one of them was Earwig and the other his precious pal who understands wireless. Jack, old boy, it’s up to you to keep your eyes open.”

“Anything doing?” he asked Muller, as he entered the wireless room.

“Not a thing. Deader than a baseball park on Christmas Day,” rejoined Muller.

“You didn’t see anything of our friend, for instance?”

“Who, Johnson? No, he hasn’t been near here.”

Jack nodded good-night and then turned in. But as the ship bored on through the darkness his eyes refused, as they customarily did, to close in his usual sound sleep.

His mind was busy with many things. It was clear that Radwig was contemplating some use of the wireless which did not yet seem quite clear. That it was his duty to checkmate him Jack was convinced, but as yet he had little to go upon except the conversation overheard behind the ventilator.

“I guess watchful waiting will have to be the policy,” he murmured to himself as he fell asleep.

CHAPTER XII

THE ARMED CRUISER

The next morning, when Jack and Bill turned out, there was quite a flutter among the passengers. A large ship had been sighted in the distance, coming rapidly westward. As she drew nearer it could be seen that she was a monster craft of four immense funnels painted a sombre black without colored bands to relieve the effect. Her upper works were a dull brown and her hull, black.

Speculation was rife concerning her identity, but it soon became noised about that the craft was the Ruritania of the Anglican Line, which had, apparently, been converted into an auxiliary cruiser by the English Government on the outbreak of the war. The sight of guns mounted on her fore and aft decks confirmed this.

On she came, a fine, grim spectacle in her dull paint. An absorbed shipload watched her, leaning over the rails as she drew abreast.

“Lie to!”

The signals fluttered from her halliards and the same order was flashed by wireless.

For the second time the St. Mark’s engines revolved more and more slowly. The two big vessels lay opposite each other on the swells, nodding solemnly. Before long a boat came bobbing over the seas from the Ruritania.

“Now’s your chance to give that fellow Earwig up,” declared Raynor to Jack, as, leaning in the door of the wireless room, they watched the scene.

“Somehow it seems to me that would be a shabby trick,” said Jack, after a moment’s thought. “I’ll confess, though, that when the Ruritania hove in sight such a thought came into my mind. But – oh, well, I guess we’ll let him get by this time.”

“Maybe you’ll be sorry for it later on,” said Raynor, little guessing that those words were prophetic. There was to come a time when Jack was to bitterly regret having let Radwig escape capture by the British.

The inspection by the naval reserve officer of the Ruritania did not vary from that which the St. Mark had already undergone at the hands of the Berwick. Naturally, the German reservists having been already given up, there was little to do but to overhaul the ship’s papers. This did not take long, and before half an hour had passed, the two steamships saluted each other and parted company.

That afternoon Jack had a visitor in the wireless room. It was Mr. Johnson. He opened the conversation ingratiatingly.

“I’m afraid I rather lost my temper the other afternoon,” he said. “I want to apologize.”

“That’s all right,” said Jack briefly, choking back a longing to tell Mr. Johnson that he was perfectly aware of his identity.

“I – er – perhaps what I offered was not enough,” he continued. “I may tell you now that I will double or triple the amount if you will send a message for me, – using a code, of course.”

Jack jumped to his feet, his eyes ablaze.

“See here, sir,” he shot out, “you might offer me all the money there is in Germany but it would not be of the slightest interest to me. Now if you have nothing more to say, I’ll ask you to leave this cabin before I – ”

The angry boy checked himself with his hands clenched and his eyes flashing. A murderous look came into Mr. Johnson’s bearded face, but he appeared to be determined to keep himself in check.

“Do not be foolish,” he urged; “have an eye to your own interests. As for your reference to Germany – ”

“You are going to say that you don’t understand it,” cut in Jack.

“Well, I must say I – ”

“Don’t go any further,” interrupted the angry young wireless boy, “and now ‘Mr. Johnson,’ or Herr Radwig, I’ll ask you to leave.”

Radwig looked for a moment as if he was about to choke. His face turned purple and his hands clenched and unclenched nervously. The sweat stood out in tiny beads on his forehead.

“What do you mean – ?” he began.

Jack leaned forward and looked at him significantly.

“Just this, Herr Professor, that in spite of that fake beard and your dyed mustache, I know you. Your reason for being disguised and going under a false name is no business of mine now. See that you don’t make it so.”

“You – you – ” sputtered the man who was startled in the extreme.

“And furthermore,” continued Jack, “we are likely to run across some more British ships. If you annoy me any more, I shall point you out for what you are. That will be all. Now go.”

Utterly bereft of words, Radwig turned heavily and half fell out of the cabin. He collided with Bill Raynor, who was just coming in. He fairly snarled at Jack’s chum, who airily remarked: