CHAPTER XIV
THE YACHT “SYLVIA”
O’NEIL and Marley sat dejectedly in the luxuriously upholstered chairs of the yacht’s cabin and gazed upon each other with a mixture of annoyance and humor. It was plain to their nautical eyes that the hatch above them which they had heard closed tightly and dogged, was the only means of exit. They were securely imprisoned.
“Bill, it’s terrible to have such confiding natures,” O’Neil exclaimed glumly. “We walked into this with our eyes wide open.
“Hello!” he added surprisedly, “they’ve stopped heaving in, and there goes the launch down again.”
The sailormen’s faces were at the nearest air ports and it was soon plain enough to O’Neil what had taken place on deck as he saw the lowered launch shove off from the yacht’s side, and shoot swiftly shoreward.
“There’s that villain Impey in her stern sheets. See him, Bill?” he cried out angrily.
Marley’s unsophisticated face betrayed not a gleam of intelligence as to what this move might mean, so the boatswain’s mate turned from the air port, threw himself back in his chair and began to elucidate.
“They thought the Japs had pinched this letter from Mr. Impey last night, so they were leaving the country before they’d get jailed. This letter here was sealed, and Impey and Randall have opened it and read it. So they were proper scared. But now their minds are easy again. Do you see?” he ended, his voice becoming serious in tone. “We are the goats, and they’ll keep us here until we can’t do them any harm.”
“What did he mean about Japan seizing the Chinese ships?” Marley asked. That was the important thing in his mind. Everything else he classed as diplomatic Greek and he was determined not to understand it.
“You know that China has a new navy coming out,” O’Neil answered patiently; “the ships were built in Europe, and it looks to me that if Japan took these ships she would do it so as to lick us.”
“But ain’t we got nothing to say?” Marley questioned perplexedly. “We ain’t looking for a fight with Japan.”
O’Neil smiled knowingly.
“No, but some of our wise guys think that we’ve got something that she wants; the Philippines, you see. And then there’s this open door flimflam in China. It’s a big question, Bill.”
O’Neil, while he was educating his friend upon the intricate and unexplained steps that frequently in the past had led into war nations apparently friendly, allowed his gaze to roam searchingly over the contents of the cabin. He noticed a door leading into what he supposed was a stateroom, and as he finished speaking he arose and tried the door-knob. It was unlocked, and the sailor pushed it open and cast a glance within.
“Wireless!” he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. “There’s a chance,” he muttered jubilantly. “Somebody may be listening.”
O’Neil surveyed the room minutely. He saw that the yacht’s wireless set was of the same manufacture as the one installed on board the “Alaska.” He thanked his luck for the practice he had taken in his leisure moments under the guidance of the midshipmen in learning the operation of the outfit. He saw that everything was connected, and that the power of the yacht’s dynamos was there at his service upon the closing of the switch on the table before him. He glanced closely at the tuning device, and although he did not understand the theory of wave lengths, he remembered that the “Alaska’s” pointer was usually set at or near the figure four hundred. Quickly making this adjustment, he closed the switch and heard the hum of the alternating current motor generator transferring the direct current of the yacht to an alternating one of high frequency and tension.
“Bill,” he exclaimed, “this little machine here may get us out of the brig before our term of confinement expires! They’ll cut the aerial as soon as they can after they hear the noise from the spark-gap. What’ll I say?” he asked thoughtfully. “It’s got to be short and yet tell ’em enough.”
Suddenly his hand moved quickly, rhythmically, and the white arc across the air-gap sizzled and rasped. Then the boatswain’s mate suddenly threw out the sending circuit and listened eagerly through the telephone head-piece for an answer. Marley observed a satisfied smile on his face as he again threw in the sending circuit, and for several minutes the spark leaped and played under its glass case like a thing alive. The noise of the arc drowned out completely the click of the key. Then the metallic sound of the key suddenly was heard, showing that the aerial wire had been severed on deck, and O’Neil threw off his head-gear and slapped Marley a resounding blow across the shoulders.
“Bill, every ship in the harbor knows that there’s a mutiny on the ‘Sylvia,’” he laughed. “I was afraid the ‘Alaska’ wasn’t listening, so I made the ‘general call.’ Now when the first boat comes alongside, you and I have got to make as much noise as Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Pawnee Bill’s Far East, in one.”
The two sailors were not kept long in suspense. O’Neil from his point of vantage soon espied one of the “Alaska’s” steam cutters, full of armed men, standing down toward the yacht’s gangway, while he heard the excited and joyful voice of Marley from his station on the other side of the cabin.
“Here comes a Jap steam launch full of our little friends. I never was so glad to see any one not of my own race before.”
O’Neil and Marley, like two men at a race-meet encouraging their favorite horses, called out loudly, cheering the two boats on. The steam launch from the “Alaska” passed close to his air port.
“We’re the mutineers, sir,” O’Neil cried out loudly across the ten feet of intervening water. “They’re holding Marley and me prisoners here in the cabin.”
Within a few minutes the hatchway was undogged and lifted and the two sailors came up blinking into the sunlight. They saw Randall and his friend closely guarded by both the Japanese and American rescue party, and O’Neil could not suppress an amused smile as he read real terror on their faces.
“You’ll feel worse than that in a few minutes!” the boatswain’s mate exclaimed hotly to the discomfited Randall. Then he put his hand into his shirt and pulled out the letter which had been the cause of all the trouble.
“Mr. Winston,” O’Neil exclaimed, “here’s a letter I found in the yacht’s cabin. Bill Marley and I have been chasing these fellows to get it since last night. When they found we had it, they locked us in the cabin.” O’Neil’s face was serious as he told the story, which was quite near the real facts. Randall’s jaw dropped, and he would have denied the sailor’s words, but that he saw by the intimidating faces of the Japanese sailors that his denial would fall upon deaf ears.
“This Japanese officer will know what it is; I can’t read the language,” the sailor added. “It was opened just as you see it when we found it. Wasn’t it, Bill?”
Marley’s face broke into a happy smile as he assured the assembled officers and men, who had been progressively arriving as quickly as the numerous boats could land at the two gangways, that every word spoken by O’Neil was the gospel truth.
Lieutenant Winston took the letter and handed it over to the Japanese lieutenant who had been the first to arrive. Winston’s face wore a solemn air of perplexity.
“What does all this mean, O’Neil?” he asked sternly.
“These varmints,” pointing to the now trembling prisoners, “have been writing up all kinds of lies for a Japanese paper, and they were trying to make off with this letter.”
The Japanese lieutenant’s face wore a puzzled look; he tried in vain to follow the English of the sailor. Winston turned to him and in simpler language explained the situation.
“I’ll take my men back to the ship,” he ended, bowing, hand to his cap, while the Japanese officer insisted upon shaking both O’Neil and Marley by the hand and thanking them solemnly for their great service to his country.
“Don’t mention it, sir,” O’Neil replied. “I hope you’ll give those white-livered guys there a hot line of Japanese argument. Where I come from there’d be a tar and feather party.”
The Japanese lieutenant smiled again, much puzzled, apologizing that he could speak and understand so little English.
“That’s good, sir,” O’Neil said as he obeyed the signal to embark. “Just don’t understand a word they say, for it won’t be true, anyway. What I’ve told you is the correct dope.”
After the American launch had shoved off from the yacht and was standing back to the “Alaska” some hundreds or more yards away, Lieutenant Winston turned an inquiring glance on the boatswain’s mate.
“That must have been an important letter,” he exclaimed, “by the way the officer pounced on it and stowed it away in his tunic pocket. Do you know what was in it?”
“Not first hand. No, sir,” O’Neil replied soberly. “But that fellow Randall knows all about it, or I miss my guess.”