Before the colonel could stop him or ask explanations, the boy rushed off. He headed straight for the wireless room. Sam was there with De Garros.
"What in the world--!" began Sam, as the disheveled, wild-eyed boy burst in. But Jack shoved his chum aside without a word and fairly threw himself at the wireless key.
He was calling the government quarantine station at the tip of Port Royal and the mouth of Kingston Harbor. There was just one way he could stop the _Endymion_ and he meant to try it, forlorn hope that it was.
The spark flashed and roared and whined.
Other stations, those on ships far out at sea and along the coast of the island, broke wonderingly in as the volley of impatient calls went thundering out into the night.
The sweat poured from Jack"s blackened face as he bent over the apparatus in the boiling heat of the tropic night, and worked the wireless as he had never worked it before.
At last he raised the operator at the quarantine station.
"We"ve shut up shop for the night. What is it?" inquired that individual, not best pleased at having his rest disturbed.
"You must stop the _Endymion_," thundered the Hertzian waves; "stop her at all hazards, even if you have to notify the fort to fire upon her."
"The _Endymion_?"
"Yes; she has infectious disease on board. She must not leave the harbor."
There was a brief and portentous silence. In the hot, heavy stillness the boys could hear each other"s deep breathing.
Then radio waves began to beat against Jack"s stunned ears. "The _Endymion_ with a clean bill of health pa.s.sed out to sea half an hour ago."
CHAPTER x.x.xV
JARROLD GETS FRANTIC
Jack turned to find the colonel bending over him. Despite the military man"s firm effort at self-control, his face was gray.
"Is there any hope?" he asked.
Jack shook his head.
"They"ve stolen a march on us, Colonel," he said. "The yacht had a clean bill of health, whether forged or not, I don"t know. At any rate, her clearance papers must have been O. K. or she could not have sailed."
"Probably forged," said the colonel. "I must communicate with Washington at once."
"I can probably relay a message through," said Jack. "What do you want to say?"
"I will go to my cabin and write it in code," was the reply, and with stooping shoulders the stricken colonel left the wireless room. After a short time he was back again with his code message. In the meantime, Sam and De Garros, under Jack"s instructions, had notified the ship"s officers, who were all ash.o.r.e, of the looting of the safe, and an important conference, which Colonel Minturn joined, was held in Captain McDonald"s cabin.
An examination by the purser showed that nothing except the papers, which had been in an inner drawer, had been taken, so that there was no object in alarming the pa.s.sengers by notifying them of the robbery. The money and valuables were temporarily removed to another and older safe, and a screen placed about the damaged one to shield it from prying eyes.
Jack was summoned to the cabin to give his version of the affair and received warm commendation for the way he had acted. But the boy felt somehow-however causelessly-that he might have done more to prevent the robbery and recover the papers. However, it was too late then.
He succeeded at last in getting a message through to the national capital, relaying to the immense radio station at Arlington. That message borne over the seas, caused more excitement in Washington than had any piece of news received there for many days. Cabinet officers were summoned for an extraordinary conference and every wire and tentacle of the secret service was set in motion.
Scout cruisers stationed off Mexico were ordered to scour the seas for the _Endymion_ and capture Jarrold if they had to sink his yacht. The administration"s message to Colonel Minturn was in code, but Jack guessed that it was a sharp reprimand couched in no very gentle terms.
Uncle Sam is not harsh with his servants, but he does not tolerate mistakes, even though innocent and unavoidable.
The _Tropic Queen_ sailed early next morning while the naval wireless was still sending the far-flung message, "Find the _Endymion_ and capture the man Jarrold." That simple message from Jack, tapped out by his agile finger-tips, had set the machinery of the war and navy departments buzzing as nothing short of a declaration of war could have done.
The possession of the complete plans of the fortification of the Panama Ca.n.a.l by Jarrold, meant only one thing. They would speedily pa.s.s into the hands of the foreign power of which he was agent. This meant that the power in question would have complete, triumphant knowledge of the most carefully guarded secrets of the mighty nation that built the great ca.n.a.l.
It would be necessary to squander money and time on remodeling the whole system of defense unless the _Endymion_ could be found. That was the burden of the song the naval wireless men were flinging backward and forward with flaming keys that crackled and flared angrily.
"Find the _Endymion_! If she is on the Seven Seas, find her."
Over those who knew the secret agony that the army officer was suffering hung a heavy gloom, as the _Tropic Queen_ ploughed her way seaward, bound for Santa Marta on the coast of Colombia. Colonel Minturn kept to his room, nursing his anxiety.
From time to time the naval wireless boomed messages in the secret code into Jack"s ears and they were promptly transmitted below. But the colonel sent out no replies. All that he could say had been said in that first radiogram that had set official Washington a-buzz.
And in the meantime, on board the _Endymion_, what was happening?
Speeding as if from a deadly plague, she was driven at top speed across the Caribbean. Jarrold, his face gray and lined, and almost as anxious-looking as the visage of Colonel Minturn, paced the deck and the bridge, calling always for speed and more speed. His niece, pale-faced and nerve-racked, watched him anxiously.
c.u.mmings, catching the naval messages that volleyed through the air, told of the hunt that was up; of the naval prows ploughing the tropic seas in a systematic hunt for the grayhound-like yacht that was fleeing like a criminal across the sea wastes.
Jarrold, under the strain, grew dangerous to approach. He kept shouting and signaling for speed and ever more speed. The engineer appealed to him in vain. It was dangerous. The boilers could carry no more steam.
Already the ship was a-quiver with their imprisoned power.
But Jarrold had only one reply:
"More speed, I say, more speed!"
On the evening of the second day of this mad race, a murmur began to run through the ship: A rumor that Jarrold was a criminal. That he was fleeing from justice. That he would blow the ship up with every soul on board rather than be captured.
The grimy crew of the stokehold, the "black watch," refused to face the trembling boilers any longer. They feared that at any moment the steel plates would yield under the terrific pressure and annihilate them and the ship. The chief engineer, unable to keep them at their work, even at the pistol"s point, sought Jarrold, while the stokers spread a mutinous spirit throughout the yacht.
Jarrold was bending over a chart in the pilot house when the engineer found him.
"You are crawling like a snail," he snarled; "more speed."
"The men have quit," said the engineer quietly to the half-crazed man.
"They are afraid to work below. The boilers may burst any moment."
"I don"t care about that. We must reach the coast before to-morrow morning. It must be done. My life hangs on it."
"I can"t help that. The men won"t work," protested the engineer; "they"ve thrown down their shovels and gone forward. I"d advise you to give in to them; they are in a dangerous mood."
Jarrold sprang to his feet with a snarl. He reached into a drawer and drew out a magazine revolver.
"The mutinous dogs! I"ll drive them back to their fires with this," he rasped out, rushing from the bridge.