The Ocean Wireless Boys on the Pacific. Goldfrap John Henry

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      CHAPTER II. – THE OCEAN IN A RAGE

      Directly they recovered their sea legs, both lads made for the cabin door. A wonderful but alarming spectacle met their eyes. The sunset had been blotted out as if by magic. In its place was a ragged, inky-black cloud curtain that was being swept across the sky as if invisible, titanic hands were swiftly pulling it.

      The sea immediately about them was heaving wildly in great swells that tumbled the Sea Gypsy, rendered less stable by her top-heavy load, from side to side. Far off, under the rushing black cloud, the forefront of which was almost over them by this time, was a jagged line of white.

      Mr. Booth, the second mate, bundled up in oilskins, ran past the boys on his way to the bridge.

      “Better get under cover,” he advised as he passed. “This is going to be a hummer.”

      But, fascinated by the majestic sight, both boys stood still, clutching the rail and bracing themselves for the shock they felt was coming, for both had guessed that the jagged white line in the distance was a giant wave. Like a cliff of water it grew as it swept toward them, accompanied by a howling of the wind that sounded like a witches’ carnival. So swift was its advance that the boys had hardly time to run toward the cabin when it broke upon them.

      The Sea Gypsy heeled like a ship that had been struck a mortal blow. For one instant she hung balanced as if she was about to capsize. The door of the cabin in which the boys had taken refuge was ripped from its hinges by the terrific force of the impact as if it had been matchwood.

      The next moment both lads were struggling for their lives in a surging, sweeping smother of water that filled the cabin to the roof. Jack felt himself clutched by the hands of his chum. Fighting to keep himself above water, Jack saw that Raynor had been hurled against some object and been wounded. There was a jagged cut in his forehead.

      He had hardly noticed this, when the Sea Gypsy staggered back to an even keel. As she did so the water swept out of the cabin like a millrace, carrying both boys helplessly with it.

      Jack felt Raynor torn from his arms, and the next thing he realized he was struggling for his life in the waves that reared and roared above the floundering yacht.

      A month before the events we are describing took place, Jack Ready, the young wireless operator of the Sea Gypsy, and his inseparable chum, Billy Raynor, had been summoned to Mr. Jukes’ New York office and told that they were detached from duty on the big Columbia, the crack liner of the Jukes’ ships, and ordered to pack their things forthwith and meet the ship-owner at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco within a week. Neither had demurred, supposing some interest of the ship-owners called for their presence there. But, much to their bewilderment, they had each been handed a substantial check by Mr. Jukes on his arrival in the western metropolis, told to outfit themselves for a long voyage, and nothing more. Two days later the Sea Gypsy cleared the harbor.

      The acquaintance of Jack and Mr. Jukes had its beginning in certain events which took place near Jack’s quaint home, which he shared with an eccentric uncle on an old schooner in the Erie Basin in New York. The rescue by Jack of Mr. Jukes’ little daughter, and the result on his affairs, were fully detailed in the first volume of this series, which was called “The Ocean Wireless Boys on the Atlantic.” This is not the place to re-tell all the exciting adventures that befell Jack and young Raynor, who was third engineer on the steamer to which Jack was assigned, in fulfillment of his ambition to be a “wireless man.”

      Nor can we do more here than to hint at the contents of the second volume. This was called “The Ocean Wireless Boys and the Lost Liner,” and set forth the fate of the Tropic Queen. In this book we found Jack and his inseparable chum steadily progressing in their chosen professions, and also met several other characters, all of whom had an important bearing on the events of the boys’ lives. Mr. Jukes took formal recognition of the part Jack played in the disaster that overtook the Tropic Queen, and inwardly resolved that his heroism and devotion to duty had made him a lad worth watching.

      Still a third volume followed, describing the boys’ further adventures. In the “Ocean Wireless Boys of the Iceberg Patrol,” much interesting information about the manner in which the ocean lanes are guarded from the white menace of the north, was given. The boys shared in many thrilling adventures also, and ended by discovering something that an expedition, at the head of which was Jack’s Uncle Toby, had almost lost through the tricks of a band of hard characters.

      The fourth book setting forth their doings was called “The Ocean Wireless Boys and the Naval Code.” Captain Simms of the U. S. N., after devising a novel code for the use of this government, through the machinations of a band of daring rascals, found himself robbed of it. Wireless played a big part in the recovery of the documents in the long run, Jack acquitting himself to the delight of the naval officials and the government by his work in this connection. Some of the miscreants, whose tricks Jack had helped to frustrate, were sent to prison but others got free. These latter the boys, though they little suspected it, were destined to meet again.

      CHAPTER III. – A LONG NIGHT

      Blinded, choked and with a red mist before his eyes, and in his ears the roar of waters, Jack fought the undertow of the retreat of the giant wave with all his strength. All at once he felt some heavy object hurled against him.

      The force of the collision almost knocked what little breath remained in his body out of his lungs. Instinctively he reached out for whatever it was that had struck him.

      It was a human body.

      The boy had hardly realized this before he found himself flung, panting and gasping, down upon the deck. Thanks to the stays of the foremost of the Sea Gypsy’s two masts, against which the retreating wave had pitched him, he had not been drawn overboard. Instead, as the pressure of water relaxed, it had dropped him and the mute burden he had clasped, to the deck.

      For a few minutes Jack lay there panting, too much exhausted to exert a muscle or limb. The unconscious form hurtled against him by the swirling waters lay at his side. It was too dark for Jack to see then who it was, or if life remained in the motionless figure. By-and-by, as his strength came back, he got to his feet and dragged the limp form to a cabin. It proved to be the one which the great wave had swept from Jack so unceremoniously. Luckily, although the seas were thundering mountains high about the laboring yacht, none like that first terrific comber assailed her.

      Steadying himself on the rocking floor with much difficulty, Jack fumbled for the electric switch. He found it at last and let on a flood of light. The radiance shed itself on a pale face with a deeply slashed forehead that lay at the boy’s feet.

      “It’s Billy,” choked the boy. He got on his knees by Raynor’s unconscious form and gently raised his chum’s head. It fell back limply. A blood-chilling thought surged through Jack and he grew as white as the lad he held.

      He put his hand hastily over Raynor’s heart and a great wave of relief went through him. His chum’s heart was beating, although feebly. It was not too late to save him. It was a hard task for Jack to stagger across that bounding, reeling floor, carrying the limp and unconscious Raynor, but at last he managed to accomplish it, and deposited the injured young engineer in the bunk that occupied one side of the latter’s cabin. Then he washed and dressed the injury as best he could.

      “Now I’ll have to get help,” said the boy to himself. “The captain’s got a medicine chest and bandages, but we have no doctor. I’ll go and find the skipper.”

      Out upon the dripping decks, over which a wave crest would every now and then curl, with a roar like СКАЧАТЬ