Curlie Carson Listens In Part 17

The skipper stared at Curlie for a full moment as if attempting to determine whether he were insane, then turned in silence to his wheel.

The wind blew the door shut and Curlie resumed his long-legged, short-legged march.

He had done three turns around the deck when his eyes caught a small figure crumpled up on the pile of ropes forward.

"h.e.l.lo," he cried, "you out here?"

Gladys did not answer at once. She was straining her eyes as if to see some object which might be hovering above the jagged, sea-swept skyline.

"No," said Curlie, as if in answer to a question, "you couldn't see the plane. You couldn't see it fifty fathoms away and then it would flash by you like a carrier pigeon. No use if you did see it. Couldn't do anything. But there's one chance in a million of their coming into our line of vision, so it's no use watching. Only chance is a radiophone message giving their location."

"But I--I want to. I--I ought to do something." For the first time he noticed how white and drawn her face was.

"All right," he said in a quiet voice, "you just sit where you are and I'll sit here beside you and you tell me one or two things. That will help."

"Tell--tell what?"

"Tell me this: Did your brother have the original of that old map?"

"Yes," her tone was already quieting down, "yes, he did, or Alfred Brightwood did. His father is very rich and he has a hobby of collecting very old editions of books. He pays terrible prices for them. He bought an old, old copy of 'Marco Polo's Travels'; paid fifteen thousand dollars for it. And inside its cover Alfred found that old map with the curious writing on the back of it.

"He thought right away that it might hide some great secret, so he had it photographed and sent the photo to Vincent. Vincent got a great scholar to read the writing for him. He never told me what the writing was; said that no one but he and Alfred should know; that it was a great secret and that girls couldn't keep secrets, so I was not to know.

"But they can keep secrets!" she exploded, breaking off from her narrative. "They do keep secrets--more secrets than boys do. Wonderful and terrible secrets sometimes!"

"All right," smiled Curlie, "I agree with you, absolutely, but what did they do then?"

"Well," the girl pressed her temples as if to drive the thoughts of the present from her. "They--why then Alfred called Vincent by radiophone on 600. Vincent was terribly afraid to answer on 600, but he did. And then, because he thought the discovery of the map was so awfully important, he rigged up a radiophone on his auto and I--I"--she buried her face in her hands--"I helped him. I was with him in the car; drove while he sent the messages, all but that last night, when the car was wrecked.

"I--I know I shouldn't have done it. I knew all the time it was wrong, but Alfred was stubborn and wouldn't talk on anything but 600--said he had as much right on 600 as anyone else--so we did it."

"And then the car was wrecked?" suggested Curlie. He felt a trifle mean about making the girl tell, but he knew she would be more comfortable once she got it out of her system. People are that way.

"Yes," she said, "someone shot his tire and wrecked his machine. I found the car, first thing in the morning, and when I saw Vincent wasn't there I got two big packing baskets that we once used in the Rockies and put them on my horse. Then I went back and got all that radio stuff and took it home and hid it. Do you think I did wrong?" The eyes she turned to his were appealing ones.

"Maybe you did," said Curlie huskily, "but that doesn't matter now; you're paying for it all right--going to pay for it in full before this voyage is over. The thing you must try to think of now is the present, the little round present that is right here now. And you must try to be brave."

"And--and"--she said in a faltering voice--"do you think Vincent is paying for what he did?"

"I shouldn't be surprised."

"Then you won't have to arrest him if he's already punished?" The appealing eyes were again upon him.

At that moment Curlie did a strange thing, so strange that the words sounded preposterous to his own ears:

"No," he said slowly, "I won't, unless--unless he asks me to."

"Oh!" she breathed, "thank you." She placed her icy-cold hand on his for a second.

"You're freezing!" he exclaimed suddenly. "You'll be making yourself sick. You must get inside!"

"I'll go to the lounging cabin in mid-deck. The forecastle is so--so lonesome," she stammered. "If you need me, you'll find me there."

Feeling her way along the rail, she disappeared into the darkness.

At almost the same moment there came the bellowing sound of a voice that could be heard above the roar of the storm:

"Curlie! Curlie! Come here! Something coming in. Can't make it out!"

It was Joe Marion. Stumbling aft, now banging his feet down hard and now treading on empty air, Curlie made his way to the radiophone cabin.

CHAPTER XVII

A BLINDING FLASH OF LIGHT

"It's an S. O. S.," screamed Joe at the top of his voice, as Curlie came hurrying up. "They sent that much in code and I got it all right. Then they tried to tell me their troubles and all I got was a mumble and grumble mixed with static, which meant nothing at all to me. Repeated it three times. Very little s.p.a.ce in between. Should have called you, I guess, but there really wasn't time; besides I kept thinking I'd start getting what he sent."

"Where'd it come from?" Curlie asked as he snapped the receiver over his head.

"Straight out of the storm. Fifty or sixty miles northeast."

Curlie groaned. "That's what I get for being impatient. Ought to have stayed right here. It's those boys all right and we've missed them; may never pick them up again."

For a time there was silence in the wireless cabin, such a silence as one experiences in the midst of a rising storm. The flap of ropes, the creak of yard-arms, the rush of waves which were already was.h.i.+ng the deck, the chug-chug-chug of the prow of the brave little craft as she leaped from wave-crest to wave-crest; all this made such music as an orchestra might, had every man musician of them gone mad. And this was the "silence" Curlie did not for a long time break.

"Well!" he shouted at last, "that settles one thing. I was right. They did go in search of that mythical island."

"You can't be sure," said Joe. "Might have been a fis.h.i.+ng boat led off her course by a chase after a whale. You never can tell."

"No, that's right," Curlie agreed.

"What makes you so sure the island on that map is mythical?" asked Joe.

"Doesn't sound reasonable."

"Lots of things don't. Take the radiophone; it wouldn't have sounded reasonable a few years ago. Lot of new things wouldn't. A new island is discovered somewhere about every year. Why not around here?"

"Anyway, I don't believe it," shouted Curlie.

Yet, after all, as he thought of it now he found himself hoping against hope that there was some such island. It wasn't the gold he was thinking of, but a haven of refuge. This storm was going to be a bad one. He fancied it was going to be one of the worst experienced on the Atlantic for years. If only there were somewhere a sheltered nook into which this c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l of a craft they were riding on might be driven, it would bring him great relief. He thought a little of Joe, of the skipper and the engineer, but he thought a great deal about the girl.

"No place for a girl," he mumbled. "Perhaps," he tried to tell himself, "there is an island, a very small island overlooked for centuries by navigators; perhaps those boys have found it. Perhaps they were merely sending out an S. O. S. to get someone to bring them gas to carry them home. But rat!" he exploded, "I don't believe it. Don't--"

He cut himself short to press the receivers tight against his ears. He was getting something. Quickly he manipulated the coil of his radio compa.s.s. Yes, it was an S. O. S.! And, yes, it was coming directly out of the storm. But what was this they were saying? "Two boys--" He got that much, but what was that? Strain his ears as he might, he could not catch another word.