The spark writhed and squealed and glared with a lambent blue flame as it leaped like a serpent of fire between the points.
But even above its loud, insistent voice calling into the tempest-ridden night could be heard the deep, quick breathing of Jarrold as he leaned forward to catch every move of the young operator"s fingers.
"This is the _Endymion_," came again.
"Yes! Yes!" flashed back Jack.
"Have you a pa.s.senger named Jarrold on board?"
Jack"s heart and pulses gave a bound. Jarrold was leaning forward till his bristling chin almost touched Jack"s cheek. The man"s hand stole back toward his hip pocket and stayed there.
"Yes, what do you want with him?"
"We-have-a-message-for him," came the halting reply.
Jack"s fingers were on the key to reply when the quick, harsh voice of Jarrold came in his ear.
"That"s the _Endymion_. No monkey business now. Send what I tell you.
I--"
There was a sudden blinding flash from the instruments and a blaze of blue, hissing fire filled the wireless room.
Jarrold and the young wireless man staggered back, their hands flung across their faces to shield their eyes from the scorching glare. It was all over in an instant-just one flash and that upheaval of light.
"The aerials have gone!" cried Jack.
He darted from the wireless room, leaving Jarrold alone, a look of frustrated purpose in his eyes.
CHAPTER VI
A DARING FEAT
Out along the wet and slippery decks, spray-dashed and awash, rushed the boy. He was headed for the bridge. He found the first officer, Mr.
Metcalf, on duty.
The officer was shrouded in gleaming oil-skins and sou"wester. Spray glistened on his cheeks and big mustache as the dim light from the binnacle revealed his features. Ahead of them Jack could make out dimly the big, plunging forepart of the ship as it rushed up a water mountain with glowing phosph.o.r.escent head, and then with a swirling roar went sliding down the other side.
"Well, Ready, what"s the trouble?" boomed out Mr. Metcalf good-naturedly. "You seem excited."
"Yes, sir. I"ve just had a message."
The officer was alert in a moment.
"A vessel in distress?"
"No, sir. Although--"
"Well, well, be quick. On a night like this any call may be urgent."
"This was from a yacht. The _Endymion_, she said her name was."
"And she"s in trouble?"
Mr. Metcalf was one of those men who leap to instant conclusions.
Already he was considering the best method of proceeding to the distressed-as he thought-ship"s a.s.sistance.
"No, in no trouble, sir. She had a message for a pa.s.senger, but in the middle of it something happened to our aerials."
"They"ve parted?"
"I don"t know, sir. Anyhow, I"m going aloft to see. I came to report to you."
"Nonsense, Ready, you can"t go aloft to-night. I"ll send a man."
"Pardon me, Mr. Metcalf," broke in Jack. "I don"t want to be disrespectful, but there"s not a man on this ship who could repair those aerials but myself."
"But you are not used to going aloft," protested Mr. Metcalf.
"I"ve been up on the _Ajax"s_ masts in worse weather than this to fix anything that was wrong," he said. "I"ll be all right. And besides, I must go. It"s my duty to do so."
"Very well, then, but for heaven"s sake be careful. You"ve no idea what the trouble is?"
"No, sir, but I"m inclined to think it is the insulation that has worn and caused a short circuit somewhere. That could easily happen on a night like this."
"Well, be off with you, Ready," said the officer, not without reluctance. "Good luck."
Jack descended from the bridge deck to the main deck. The ship was plunging and jumping like a race-horse. He could catch the wild movement of the foremast light as it swung in crazy arcs against the dark sky.
"Not a very nice night to go aloft," thought the boy, with a shrug, "but it must be done."
Temporarily he had forgotten all about Jarrold. All that lay in front of him was his duty, the stern necessity of repairing the aerials upon which it was possible human lives might depend. In the event of accident to the _Tropic Queen_, the existence of all on board might hang on the good condition of those slender strands of copper wire which alone connected the ship with other craft and dry land.
The wind screamed across the exposed main deck with locomotive-like velocity. Big waves, nosed aside by the bow, viciously took their revenge by sweeping like waterfalls across the ship"s stem. Jack was drenched through before he had fought his way to the weather shrouds, by which slender ladder he had to climb to the top of the swaying steel fore-mast, fully fifty feet above the lurching decks.
He had not put on oil skins and his blue serge uniform, soaked through, clung to his body like an athlete"s tights. But he was not thinking of this as he grabbed the lower end of the shrouds and prepared to mount aloft. A big sea swept across the exposed foredeck, almost beating the breath out of his body. But he clung with the desperation of despair to the steel rigging, and the next moment, taking advantage of a momentary lull, he began to mount.
Long before he reached the cross-trees, his hands were cut and sore and every muscle in his body taut as fiddle strings. About him the confusion and the noise of the storm shrieked and tore like Bedlam let loose.
But stubbornly the figure of the young wireless boy crept upward, flattened out by the wind at times against the ratlines to which he clung, and again, taking every fighting chance he could seize, battling his way up slowly once more. The cross-trees gained, Jack paused to draw breath. He looked downward. He could see, amid the inferno of raging waters, the dim outline of the hull. From that height it looked like a darning needle. As the mast swung, it appeared that with every dizzy list of the narrow body of the ship beneath, she must overturn.
Jack had been aloft often and knew the curious feeling that comes over a novice at the work: that his weight must overbalance the slender hull below. But never had he experienced the sensation in such full measure as he did that night, clinging there panting, wet, bruised, half-exhausted, but yet with the fighting spirit within him unsubdued and still determined to win this furious battle against the elements.
As he clung there, catching his breath and coughing the salt water from his lungs, he recollected with a flash of satisfaction that he had his rubber gloves in his pocket. These gloves are used for handling wires in which current might be on, and are practically shock-proof. Jack knew that he would have to handle the aerials when he got aloft, and if he had not his gloves with him, he would have stood the risk of getting a severe shock.