Chapter 21. The Spark Finds A Friend Through The Gale

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_ CHAPTER XXI. THE SPARK FINDS A FRIEND THROUGH THE GALE

The time had dragged on far into the night. Joe was still at the wireless sending table, sleepless, patient, brave--a sailor born and bred.

Jasper, like many another rascal a superstitious coward in the face of impending death, was seeking to appease the sting of his conscience by doing everything in his power to make amends in these grave moments. He stood by, pallid-faced yet collected enough to obey any order instantly.

Captain Tom remained on deck all the time now, though Hank often relieved him briefly at the wheel. Both Hepton and Jasper stood by to help as deck-hands. Powell Seaton came up on deck occasionally, though he remained more in the motor room.

Again and again Joe signaled--always that desperately appealing "C.Q.D.!" It was all the signal he needed to send out. Wherever heard, on land or water, the first operator to catch it would break in at once with a demand for further particulars.

Yet Joe's soul grew sick within him as time passed, and no such break came through the storm-laden air. For Dawson, as well as had he stood on deck, knew that this endless, malignant fury of the gale must sooner or later start the seams of the staunch little craft. Or else, struck by a wave bigger than any others, she would lie so far over on her beam ends that she must finish the manoeuvre by "turning turtle"--lying with her keel uppermost, and the crew penned underneath to drown in haste.

"Nothing to report yet, Joe, old fellow?" came down Captain Tom's brave though anxious voice for perhaps the fortieth time.

"No reply to our signals, Tom," went back the answer.

"Do you think our spark is still strong enough to carry far?"

"Plenty of electric 'juice' left," Joe responded. "The spark is as strong as ever. Oh, if we only had as much gasoline!"

"Oh, if we only had!"

But ten minutes after that last call Joe again sent forth:

"C.Q.D.! C.Q.D.!"

Then down the receivers traveled a click--not loud, yet unmistakable.

"Where are you? Answer!" came the response, out of the air from some quarter.

In frantic haste Joe Dawson fell upon his key once more.

Motor yacht "Restless!" Under no power whatever. Gasoline almost gone--saving the last for any emergency chance that comes to us. All canvas blown overboard. Do you get this?

It seemed to frenzied Joe Dawson as though many minutes passed, yet the response came promptly:

Give us your present position, "Restless," as best you know it!

Joe obeyed with fingers that seemed themselves to be worked by electricity. The receiver of the message repeated Joe's response, to make sure that it was correct.

"Who are you?" Joe now broke in to answer.

Havana liner, bound north, and, we believe, within thirty miles of you. Have you been signaling long?

"Seems as though I had been signaling for years," sent back Joe, laughing nervously to himself. The answer came:

We'd heard you before, then, but there was a little mishap to our installation. You keep at your table to send and receive. I'll do the same at my end. Keep up your courage until we reach you. Be ready to burn Coston lights when we ask you to.

Then how fast Joe Dawson managed to talk up through the speaking tube! Tom Halstead, after first announcing the great news to the deck with a wild cheer, put Hank at the wheel and hurried below. Shortly, however, the young skipper was back on deck, bearing the wonderful news.

In smooth weather the Havana liner, ordinarily a fifteen-knot boat, would have reached them in two hours. Under the weather conditions of this wild night it was much later when the two craft were within hailing distance by signal lights. Hank was now in command of the deck, Skipper Tom and Powell Seaton being with Joe.

"Shall we try to send you a line for a tow?" came the demand from the liner.

"Yes," replied Halstead. Then, with a grimace he added:

"But the salvage charge for such a tow will call for more than we can raise, Joe, old fellow. I reckon the 'Restless' will have to be put up for sale to pay her own bills."

"Do you think I'd let you boys stand the towing charges?" demanded Powell Seaton, indignantly. "Whatever charges there are are mine to pay, and I'm at least good for the entire purchase price of a few boats like even this good little old salt water wizard!"

Tom soon afterwards made his way to the deck, but Mr. Seaton, weak and almost ill after the hours of anxiety, threw himself upon a cushioned seat near the wireless sending table.

As Tom stood on the bridge deck he studied the liner's lights as that larger craft manoeuvred in to the leeward of the motor craft.

Once she had gained this position at a sufficient distance to make any collision on this wild sea unlikely, the liner steamed ahead.

"Stand ready to receive our line!" came to Joe in clicks through the watch-case receivers over either ear. He swiftly transmitted the order through the speaking tube to Halstead on the bridge.

Then the liner burned another light. Tom answered with one held in his own hand. It was the signal to look for the line, and the answer.

Through the darkness came a sudden, red flash from the after deck of the liner. The wind was so heavy that those on the bridge deck of the "Restless" could not be sure that they heard the report of the gun. But a missile whizzed over their heads, and to this blessed projectile trailed a thin line that fell across the top of the cabin deck.

Tom and Hank made a simultaneous bolt to get hold of that line. It was young Butts who secured it. He passed it on to the young captain, and, together, they leaped to the bridge-deck with it. From there they crawled forward over the raised deck, slipping the line, at last, between the two raised ends of the towing bitt.

"Now, haul in with a will," glowed the young skipper, as they crept back to the bridge-deck. A great wave swept over them on their way back. Tom saw it coming, and braced himself. Hank was caught by the rush of waters; he would have been swept overboard, but Halstead grabbed at one of his ankles, holding on grimly.

At that moment the late prisoner, Jasper, saw what was happening. Projecting himself forward over the raised deck, he, too, caught hold of Hank Butts, while Powell Seaton held to Jasper.

It was a sort of human chain by which Hank was pulled to safety. Tom, throughout the excitement, held the "thin line" in one hand.

"Haul in this thin line, quickly," shouted the young commander, who could barely make himself heard above the tumult of the gale.

As the line was some four hundred feet long, it used up precious moments to haul it and coil up the slack. As the last of the "thin line" came into their hands there came with it the first of a stouter hawser, the two lines being knotted securely together.

"Hold on to me, now! Form a chain again," ordered Skipper Tom. "I'll make the hawser fast forward."

All this while the Havana liner, some four hundred feet away, was going through a complicated bit of manoeuvering under the hands of her officers. Alternately she moved at half-speed-ahead, at stop, or on the reverse, in order that, despite the high-rolling waves, she might not go too far ahead and snap the thin line. But now young Halstead soon had a stout hitch about the towing bitt at the bow. A few more turns, then he signaled to those behind holding him to help him back to the bridge deck. A dozen great waves had rolled over him on that smooth raised deck, but the members of the human chain hauled him back to safety.

"Signal to our friends that they can apply full speed ahead, Joe, if they want to," directed the young motor boat captain, briefly, as he reached the comparative safety of the bridge deck once more.

Over the noise of the gale the answering blast from the liner's whistle came to them as a far-away sound. But now the big boat ahead started on at a ten-knot speed.

"Gracious, but this seems good, once more!" glowed Tom Halstead, taking over the wheel as the towing hawser tautened and the "Restless" began to move forward under a headway that could be controlled and directed.

"We couldn't have stood this racket much longer, without a tow," chattered Joe. "I've had moments at the wheel, to-night, when, on account of our helplessness, I've felt sure we were going to 'turn turtle.'"

"What ails your jaws, old fellow?" demanded Tom, looking curiously at his chum. "Say, you're shaking to pieces, and I don't wonder. Get below and get dry and warm. Get below all of you, except one to stand by me. Who can best remain on deck for a few minutes more?"

"I can," proposed Jasper, starting forward with an odd mixture of sullenness and eagerness in his tone.

"I'll trust you--now," nodded Captain Halstead, after eyeing the man keenly. "The rest of you get below. We want a few dry folks aboard."

On board there was clothing in abundance, enough to enable everyone to make at least a few changes. Now that the "Restless" could be held to a course, Hank Butts cautiously made a small fire in the galley stove, and then stood by to watch the fire. After a while he had coffee going--this with a "cold bite" of food.

Hepton came up, bye-and-bye, to take the wheel. As he was wholly capable, Tom surrendered the helm to him, then dropped down below for some of that coffee.

"We've found out to-night what a wireless is good for," declared Joe. "But for it, we wouldn't have kept the 'Restless' afloat and right side up through the night."

"Until we got this tow I didn't expect ever to see port again," Tom Halstead admitted, quietly. "Do you know, the worst thing folks will have against row-boats in the future will be the fact that row-boats are too small to carry a wireless installation!"

"You feel wholly safe, now, do you, captain?" demanded Powell Seaton. "It rather seems to me that the gale has been getting heavier."

"It has," Halstead admitted. "If we were adrift, now, we probably couldn't keep right-side up for ten minutes. But give the 'Restless' real headway, and she'll weather any gale that a liner or a warship will."

"If the towing hawser should part!" shuddered Mr. Seaton.

"We'd hope to get another line across, and made fast, before we 'turned turtle,'" replied Skipper Tom.

No one could venture from below on the bridge deck without being quickly drenched. For that reason the wheel-reliefs were short. Hank, by staying right by his galley fire, was able to keep heat at which anyone coming down from the bridge deck could dry himself.

By daylight the gale and sea were lighter. For one thing, the Havana liner had carried her tow so far north that they were out of the worst of it. Half an hour after daylight the wireless operator aboard the larger craft telegraphed Joe:

"We've taken you in four miles off the town of Mocalee. You can get gasoline there. Do you want to cast off our line now?"

"Yes," flashed back Joe, after consulting Captain Halstead. "And our greatest, heartiest thanks for your fine work for us."

There was further interchange of courtesies, then the line was cast off as soon as Joe and Hank had started the twin motors going on the little that was left of the gasoline. There was no way, or need, to settle the liner's towing charges now. These could be collected later, for the "Restless" was a boat registered by the United States authorities. She could be found and libeled anywhere if her young owners failed to settle.

"Hooray! But doesn't it feel great to be moving under one's own power again!" chortled Captain Tom, as he felt the vibration of the propellers and swung the steering wheel.

Though the coast had been visible from daylight, the town of Mocalee was not in sight until the boat neared the mouth of a river. Up this stream, half a mile, nestled a quaint little Florida town, where, as one of the natives afterwards expressed it to Joe, "we live on fish in summer and sick Yankees in winter."

"We'd better get on shore, all hands, and stretch our legs," proposed Powell Seaton, after Skipper Tom had made the "Restless" fast at the one sizable dock of the town. "I see a hotel over yonder. I invite you all to be my guests at breakfast--on a floor that won't rock!"

"I'll stay aboard, then, to look after the boat," volunteered Hepton. "And you can rely on me to keep a mighty sharp eye on that man, Jasper," he added, in Halstead's ear.

It was after seven o'clock in the morning when the shore party from the "Restless," after strolling about a little, turned toward the hotel.

As they passed through a corridor on the way to the office Tom Halstead glanced at a red leather bag that was being brought downstairs by a negro bell-boy.

"Do you see the bag that servant has?" asked Tom, in a whisper, as he clutched Powell Seaton's arm. "Scar on the side, and all, I'd know that bag anywhere. It's the one Anson Dalton brought over the side when he boarded the 'Restless' from the 'Constant'!" _

Read next: Chapter 22. Tom Halstead Springs The Climax

Read previous: Chapter 20. "C.Q.D! C.Q.D.!--HELP!"

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