The girl was Miss Jarrold! She recognized him at the same instant and gave a little cry. Simultaneously Jarrold and Colonel Minturn came face to face. A hoa.r.s.e cry broke from Jarrold"s throat. He reached into an inside pocket and drew out a bundle, which he threw overboard before Minturn could catch his wrist in an iron grasp.
But as the papers splashed, and Jarrold broke out into a mocking laugh and cried, "You thought you had me beaten, but it"s you that are beaten now, Colonel Minturn," there came another splash, a bigger one.
"It"s the kid!" shouted one of the sailors. "He"s gone after that bundle!"
Mr. Metcalf jumped from his seat to the a.s.sistance of Colonel Minturn, for Jarrold, maddened by the series of disasters that had overtaken him, had reached for and drawn a pistol. A crack over the wrist from an oar wielded by the first mate, sent the weapon flying overboard.
A few moments later Jarrold, who fought like a tiger, was lying bound in the bottom of the boat with two sailors guarding him. His niece sat in the stern sheets sobbing hysterically over the ironic turn of fate that had caused the ship that they thought was to rescue them to be the very one they most dreaded.
Jack was hauled back on board after a few seconds" immersion. In one hand he held high a dripping bundle of papers. A sailor reached out to take them from him. But the boy refused to give them up.
"Only one man gets these," he said, shaking the water from his curly head, "and that is Colonel Minturn."
With a gasp of thankfulness that was almost a sob, the colonel took the papers from the boy"s hands, thrust them within his coat and then fairly hauled Jack on board.
By a twist of fate, seemingly incredible, but really attributable to a logical chain of events, the papers relating to the priceless secrets of the Panama Ca.n.a.l were once more in the proper hands. They never left them again.
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII
A BOLT FROM THE BLUE
All the way back to the ship the girl sat silent, with bowed head buried in her slender white hands. Jarrold, tied and harmless, on the floor of the boat, raved and swore incoherently. Not till she stood once more on the deck of the _Tropic Queen_, however, did the girl give way. Then as she saw her uncle, sullen and defiant now, led to the captain"s cabin where he was to be questioned, she reeled and would have fallen had not De Garros, who happened to be close at hand, caught her.
The sudden stopping of the ship had awakened most of the pa.s.sengers and they had come on deck to see what was the matter.
"Here, take her below," said De Garros to a stewardess, as the pa.s.sengers crowded curiously around.
The ship was once more got under way, the boat lashed home and the voyage resumed, while in the captain"s cabin, facing Colonel Minturn, the wretched Jarrold told his story. But he expressed no sorrow, except for the failure of his mission. Captain McDonald ordered him confined in a cabin, to be turned over to the U. S. authorities when the ship reached Panama.
The sentence had hardly been executed, when a shuddering, jarring crash shook the ship.
Her way was checked abruptly and every plate and rivet in her steel fabric groaned.
Jack was thrown from his chair in the wireless room and hurled against a steel brace. He struck his head and fell unconscious to the floor.
For an instant following the shock, all was absolute silence. Then bedlam broke loose. Hoa.r.s.e voices could be heard shouting orders, and the answering yells of the crew came roaring back. Women were screaming somewhere below, and men pa.s.sengers were trying in vain to quiet them.
Sam was hurled out of his bunk, and, rudely awakened, found Jack lying stunned on the floor. He dashed some water over him and then ran to the bridge. Captain McDonald, firm and inflexible, stood there giving orders as calmly as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
"Shall I send out an S. O. S., sir?" asked Sam, striving to keep as cool as the ship"s commander.
"Not yet. I have not a full report of the extent of the injury to the ship," was the reply. "First reports indicate that we have struck a submerged derelict."
But as Sam went back to the wireless room, he saw the boats" crews all standing by and every preparation being made for abandoning the ship. In an instinctive way, he felt that she had been mortally injured. She was still moving, but slowly, like a wounded thing dragging itself along.
The first officer came hurrying along the deck and shoved his head into the door.
"You had better try to raise any ship within our zone as fast as you can," he said.
"You are going to send the pa.s.sengers off?" asked Sam.
"Yes, as a measure of precaution. The derelict we struck has torn a big hole in the engine room. It is impossible to say how long we can keep afloat."
He hurried off. Sam heard a groan and saw Jack rising on an elbow.
"What is it? What"s up?" he asked bewilderedly, and then: "Oh, I remember now. Any orders for an S. O. S., Sam?"
"Not yet. But we"re to raise any ship we can. They are sending the pa.s.sengers off in the boats."
"Wow! That was a crack I got when she struck," said Jack, getting on his feet. "What did we hit, did you hear?"
"A submerged derelict. It has torn a big hole in the engine room."
Jack took the key from Sam and began pounding it. But an exclamation of dismay spread over his face as he did so.
"No juice!" he exclaimed. "Or not enough to amount to anything. Here"s a fine fix."
Below them, as they stood facing each other, thunderstruck at this disaster, every light on the ship went out.
"Dynamos out of business," gasped Jack. He struck a match and lighted a lamp that hung in "gimbals" on the bulkhead.
They could hear the sharp staccato commands of the ship"s officers as they quelled the incipient panic that had followed the extinguishing of the lights. The boats were being filled and sent away with quiet and orderly precision, a boatswain or a quartermaster in each one. The higher officers could not leave the ship till later, by the law of the sea.
Everything moved quietly, almost silently. It was like watching a dream picture, Jack thought afterward. Luckily, the moon was bright and gave ample light for the disembarking of the pa.s.sengers. It was just this, the bright moonlight, the cloudless sky and the smooth, summery sea that made it all seem so unreal. It seemed impossible that a death blow had been dealt to a mighty liner and that her pa.s.sengers were in peril, on a sea like a millpond and under an unruffled sky.
Jack hastened forward to report the failure of the current, without which not a message of appeal could be flung abroad. The captain received the news without the flicker of an eyelid.
"At any rate, the pa.s.sengers are all safe," he said, "the boats are all off. Each has plenty of provisions and water and is in charge of a competent man. We are in for a long spell of fine weather and the coast is not far off. At the worst it will be a sea adventure for them with few discomforts."
"Are you going to abandon the ship, sir?" asked Jack respectfully.
"No. My duty is to stay by her as long as I think there is a chance of saving her. The report from the engine room is that she can be run several miles yet before the water reaches the boilers. All the pumps are at work, full force, and that is the reason there is no power left for the dynamos."
"Do you mean you are going to try to beach her, sir?" inquired Jack.
"If I can possibly do so," was the reply. "There is an island not far to the south of here called Castle Island. If I can reach it in time and beach her, there may be one chance in a thousand of salving her, after all."
Jack had asked all the questions he dared. Had it not been a time of such stress, he would not have ventured to ask so many.
He hurried back to the wireless room. Sam was busy at the key, but he shook his head in reply to Jack"s inquiring glance.
"Nothing doing," he said. "Any news forward?"
"Yes. All the pa.s.sengers are off and there are now on board only the officers and crew. The skipper means to run for an island called Castle Island and beach her there. He thinks that later there may be a chance of getting her hull off, if he can make it."