The young engineer’s head was bleeding from a cut and in his hand he hada big spanner. Pressing upward behind him as he backed out of thefire-room companionway were the Black Squad, wild with panic. In theirhands they carried slice-bars, shovels, any weapon that came handy.
“Stand back, I tell you,” commanded Raynor, as Jack approached him.
“Stand back nothing,” bellowed a giant of a stoker. “Think we’re goingto the bottom on this rotten hooker? Stand back, yourself. Come on,boys! The boats! We’ll get away while there’s time.”
“You’ll stay plumb where you are or be drilled as full of holes asporous plasters!”
It was little Mr. Brown who spoke. Almost before he knew it, Jack was atthe doughty little officer’s side and stood with Raynor and Mr. Brownfacing that howling mob from the black regions below.
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CHAPTER XXXIV.
QUELLING THE MUTINY.
“So you _will_ have it, eh?”
The leader of the Black Squad, a huge hulk of a fellow, stripped to thewaist and smeared hideously with coal-dust, sprang forward. Above hishead he brandished a heavy slice-bar.
He came straight for Jack and was raising his formidable weapon tostrike the boy down when something happened.
Crack!
There was the report of a pistol and the fellow fell headlong. But itwas not Jack’s pistol that had exploded. The boy could not have broughthimself even in that moment to fire on a fellow being.
It was Mr. Brown’s weapon that had spoken.
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He came straight for Jack ... when somethinghappened.—_Page 258_]
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“Any one else want the same medicine?” demanded the fearless little man,indicating the form of the wounded fireman.
The men murmured sullenly. Their leader was gone, and without him theywavered and hesitated. The captain came running aft.
“What in the mischief is going on here?” he shouted.
“Fire-room crew. Mutiny, sir!” said Raynor. “We held ’em as long as wecould, but the scoundrels overpowered us. The first is lying belowwounded, sir. That fellow Mr. Brown shot felled him with a slice-bar.”
The captain’s brow grew black as night.
“Back to your posts, you mutinous dogs!” he roared. “Back, I tell you,or some of you will feel cold lead!”
He advanced toward them, driving them before him by sheer force ofcharacter as if they had been a flock of sheep.
“You cowards!” he went on. “There is no danger, but at the first shockof a small collision you leave your posts like the curs you are! Down tothe fire-room with you!”
Completely demoralized, the men shuffled below again. Certain men weretold off to attend to the wounded chief engineer, whose injuries werefound to be slight. As for the man Mr. Brown had shot, he turned out notto have been injured at all. The chicken-hearted giant of a fellow hadsimply dropped at the report of the pistol and lain there till thetrouble blew over. He was placed in irons and confined in the forecastleto await trial in port on charges of mutiny.
And thus, by prompt action, the mutiny was quelled almost in itsinception. The thoroughly cowed firemen took up their work and nothingmore was heard of refusal to do duty. It had been a good object lessonto Jack who, in ranging himself by the side of Mr. Brown and the youngengineer, had acted more on instinct than anything else.
Secretly he was glad it had ended as it had, without bloodshed, for, ashe knew, discipline on a ship must be upheld at any cost. He realizedthat neither the captain nor Mr. Brown would have hesitated for aninstant to hold the men back with firearms, had they persisted in theirbull-headed rush.
“Well, we are all right for the time being,” said the captain to Mr.Brown. “No need to keep these men by the boats.”
“Then we are not hurt as badly as you thought, sir?”
“No, the report is that the bow bulkhead is holding, although ourforward plates are stove in. Thank goodness, we didn’t hit harder!”
“Yes, indeed, sir.”
“When daylight comes we’ll start to patch up. I hope this witches’ brothof a fog will have held up by then.”
“I’m glad that it was no worse, sir.”
“And so, indeed, am I, although, if it comes on to blow, there may yetbe a different yarn to spin.”
The captain and the officer went forward, and Jack was left alone.
He took the opportunity to snatch a nap, adjusting the “wireless alarm”so that any ship that came within the zone would awaken him instantly.
Twice during the long night he tried to raise some other craft, but eachtime failed.
“I guess they’ve called in all the ships on the ocean,” said the boy tohimself as, after the second attempt, he desisted from his efforts forthe time being.
When daylight came, the big tanker presented a forlorn picture. Of theberg that had almost sent her to the bottom, there was no sign, althoughthe fog had lifted quite a little.
The stout steel bow was twisted and crumpled like a bit of tin-foil.There was a yawning cavity in it, too, through which the water washedand gurgled with an ominous sound. When Jack came on deck, huge canvasscreens were being rigged over it to keep out the water as much aspossible. The steamer was proceeding slowly ahead through the fogwreaths, but, compared with her usual speed, she appeared hardly to havemomentum.
Besides the protection of the crumpled bow by the canvas screens,another portion of the crew was sent below to strengthen the bulkheadfrom within by heavy timbers. There was a space between the front end ofthe tanks and the bulkhead, and in this they labored, bracing the steelpartition as firmly as possible.
But Jack, when he made his report, heard Mr. Brown, who had the watch,remarking cheerfully to the second officer that the barometer had risenand that the prospects were for good weather.
“Well, we deserve a little luck,” was the response.
About noon the captain reappeared on the bridge. He was as muchrefreshed by his brief rest as most men would have been by a night’ssleep.
He had not been there ten minutes, when Jack, his face full ofexcitement, came hurrying up with a message.
“Important, sir!” he said.
The captain glanced the message over and then burst into an angryexclamation.
“They are asking for assistance, you say?”
“Yes, sir. But all I could catch is on that message there.”
“Great guns! Mr. Brown, sir, disasters always appear to come inbunches.”
“What’s the matter, sir?” asked the sympathetic officer.
“Why, young Ready, here, has just caught a message from the air. A shipis in distress somewhere.”
“Any details, sir?”
The captain shook his head.
“None. This is all the wireless caught. ‘S.O.E.,’ and then a few secondslater, ‘No hope of controlling it.’”
“Sounds like fire to me, sir,” said Mr. Brown.
“So it does to me. Hustle to your key, Ready, and get what more you can.If we can help them, we will, though Lord knows we’re in bad enoughshape ourselves!”
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CHAPTER XXXV.
A CALL FOR HELP.
Jack’s fingers shook with excitement and suspense as he took his seatagain at the instrument and began searching the air for a clue to themysterious sender of the frantic summons.
Every fiber of the adventurous strain in his being responded to thiscall for succor from the unknown. Impatiently he waited for more to comebeating at the drums of his receivers. But for a long time he heardnothing.
Then, faintly and hesitatingly, there volleyed through the air s
omefigures. Latitude and longitude, Jack guessed them to be, but they wereso feebly sent and so jumbled, that in themselves they argued eloquentlythe stress of the sender.
Then came a frantic appeal that set Jack’s pulses to throbbing:
“Help! S.O.S.!”
Then silence shut down again. The captain appeared in the doorway.
“Well?” he said interrogatively. “Anything more?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jack, handing him the figures he had jotted down; “he’sbeen trying to send us his latitude and longitude, I think. Can you makethis out?”
The commander scanned the figures and then gave an impatient snort.
“Confound that wireless lunatic!”
“What is it, sir? Are the figures no good?”
“Good! I should think not. This latitude and longitude would put thatship somewhere up near Albany!”
The captain was irritated. His long vigil on the bridge had told uponhim.
“Confound it all,” he broke out testily, “if that fellow wants us tocome after him, why the dickens can’t he send some plain facts?”
“His current is very weak, sir. I can hardly hear the messages,”volunteered Jack.
“Well, stand by, my boy, and report to me the instant you get anythingmore,” said the captain. “It’s just like the luck. Here we are stove inlike an old egg-shell, and there’s not another ship they can pick on forhelp but us.”
Under the circumstances the captain’s irritation was perhaps natural.The _Ajax_ had already been delayed by the fog, and she was owned by acorporation that expected its ships to run on time. Furthermore, herinjuries would cause her to limp along at a snail’s pace; and now, onthe top of all this, had come an appeal for help that could not bedisregarded, but which gave no facts or figures whatever!
“Who are you?—Who are—you?—Who are you?”
This was the message that went crashing out from the sender of the_Ajax_.
The aerials took up the question and spread it abroad to all the windsof heaven, but not the faintest whisper came back from the ether to tellthat the words had been caught.
Then, with the suddenness of lightning, came another startling appeal.
“Fire is spreading. Ship being abandoned. Help!”
It was maddening to sit there and listen to these futile prayers forsuccor without being able to do a thing to reply to them.
“Why, oh why, won’t he send his position?” sighed Jack; and again hesent a frantic query volleying along the air waves.
But the receiver remained as silent as the void itself. Not the faintestscratching of an invalid fly’s footsteps came to reward Jack’svigilance.
Before he could report his failure to the captain that dignitary wasback again. He was fairly bubbling with impatience.
“It’s enough to drive a man mad,” he growled. “They must be a crew oflunatics on that ship. I never heard of anything like it. Oh, I’d liketo drum some sense into their fool heads!”
“Hullo! Wait a jiffy!” cried Jack, startled out of his customarydeference. “By the great horn spoon, here comes something now!”
The captain’s burly form bent over the slim body of the young operatoras Jack’s nimble fingers flew over the receiving pad. He was excited andmade no effort to hide it, although his long years at sea had taught himthat nothing was too wildly improbable to occur on the great deep.
But that he should have collided with an iceberg and another ship withinhis wireless zone should be simultaneously on fire appeared to be almostwithout the pale of possibilities.
“Ah! Figures at last!” he said, as Jack jotted down a lot of numerals.
“Great Scott!” he shouted a moment later, “those figures put her withinforty miles of us to the southwest!”
“Hold on, sir, here’s some more!” warned Jack.
The diaphragms crackled and tapped as a hail of dots and dashes beatagainst them like surf from the electric ocean. The sending was strongernow from the doomed vessel, wherever and whatever she was.
“This is the yacht _Halcyon_, New York for the Azores. Owner and son onboard. For Heaven’s sake, send help! This may be good-bye.”
“Thunder and lightning!” roared the captain, more excited than Jack hadever seen him. “This is news! Why, the _Halcyon_ is Mr. Jukes’ yacht!”
The pencil dropped from Jack’s nerveless fingers and he sat back,gasping at this extraordinary intelligence.
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CHAPTER XXXVI.
LOOKING FOR THE BURNING YACHT.
“Mr. Jukes’ yacht!” repeated the young wireless lad. “And his son is onboard, too!”
“What, you know him?”
“Yes, I met him when I was in the hospital after those firemen, orrather the lamp-post, gave me that crack on the head.”
“Great Scott! It’s a case of have to go now whether we want to or not,”exclaimed the captain. “Of course,” he added, “we would have goneanyhow, but still, under the present conditions, if another steamer hadbeen handy, I’d have left the job to them. But Mr. Jukes’ yacht, that’sanother pair of shoes!”
“Clang-g-g-g-g-g-g!”
The wireless alarm “rang in” with its sharp, insistent note. Jack bentagain to his instruments. In a trice he had turned into a business-likeyoung operator of the wireless waves.
“Maybe that’s some more from them,” exclaimed the captain, as Jackpicked up his pencil.
“Hurry!” was what Jack wrote. “Owner states he will give a million toanyone who will come to his help. Good-bye. I’ve got to make a getaway.”
“Well, at any rate, that wireless chap on the _Halcyon_ is a cheerfulsort of cuss,” observed the captain. “I guess that will be all from himnow. I’ll go forward and see about proceeding to their aid.”
But the captain’s plans were destined to be changed. For a time theymoved steadily but slowly toward the location of the doomed yacht. Bynoon the sun was out and the sea dancing a vivid blue under a brightsun. There was a smart breeze, too, and, after considering all theconditions, Captain Braceworth summoned Mr. Brown.
“Mr. Brown,” said he, “take a boat and go about twenty miles to thesou’west. If that yacht’s boats are scattered about there, you shouldsight some of them. You should be back not long after eight bells of thedog-watch. I’ll have flares and rockets sent up so that you can find theship easily.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Mr. Brown, with sailor-like directness, andhurried off to complete his preparations.
In the meantime, Jack and young Raynor had been having a consultation.The latter was by this time quite an efficient wireless man, and thisjust fitted in with Jack’s plan; for he was dying to go in that boatwhich was about to set out after the castaways!
“How would you like to take the wireless this afternoon?” he inquired ofhis chum.
“I can’t think of anything that would suit me better. Why?” was therejoinder.
“Because I am going to apply for a chance to go in that boat, if youwill do relief duty for me. You are not on watch this afternoon, and itwill be great experience for you.”
“Aren’t you the little wheedler, though?” laughed Raynor. “All right,Jack, I’ll do it for you. Cut along, now, and see the skipper. Youhaven’t any time to waste.”
In five minutes Jack was back and radiant.
“He says he doesn’t know why I should go hunting for trouble,” hereported, “but he says I can go.”
“Well, that’s the main thing,” said Raynor cheerily, “and you’d bettersee Mr. Brown right away. There goes the boat.”
The craft was, in fact, being slung out on the davits when Jackapproached the mate and told him that he was to form one of the party.
“Always digging up work for yourself,” grinned the mate.
“That’s what the captain said,” rejoined Jack demurely.
He took his place in the boat, and a few m
oments later the small craftwas being rowed away from the big tanker’s side by six pairs of stoutarms.
“Cheerily, men!” admonished Mr. Brown. “Remember it’s the owner we’regoing after. It may mean a dollar or two in every man’s pocket if wehurry.”
This hint had the desired effect.
The men bent to the oars till the stout ash curved and the boat hissedthrough the water. They had not gone more than a mile before a livelybreeze caused Mr. Brown to order the sail hoisted.
Naturally enough, nobody was averse to this, and soon, under the canvas,they were speeding over the dancing sea. In his pleasure at thisagreeable break in the monotony of sea-life, Jack almost forgot theseriousness of the errand on which they were bent.
But Mr. Brown reminded him of it by observing, “I’m hoping we are nottoo late.”
This idea had not entered Jack’s head before. Too late!
What if they were too late, after all! That last message had broken offwith suspicious abruptness, although Mr. Jukes must have been thenaboard, because his offer of a million dollars to the unknown ship—Jackhad not sent the name of the _Ajax_—was characteristic of him.
The bright afternoon seemed to cloud over as he thought of this. Sternand capricious as the magnate was, still, Jack, in his inner soul,admired his forcefulness and driving power; and as for Tom Jukes, he hadformed a genuine liking for the frail lad.