THE RADIO DETECTIVES IN THE JUNGLE
By
A. HYATT VERRILL
AUTHOR OF “THE RADIO DETECTIVES,” “THE RADIO DETECTIVES
UNDER THE SEA,” “THE RADIO DETECTIVES
SOUTHWARD BOUND,” ETC.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK :: 1922 :: LONDON

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

[I. Strange Places]
[II. A Cry for Help]
[III. The Castaways]
[IV. More Mysteries]
[V. The End of the Submarine]
[VI. In South America]
[VII. Off for the Jungle]
[VIII. On the Trail]
[IX. Kenaima!]
[X. Red Beard Seals His Doom]
[XI. Vengeance]
[XII. The End of the Trail]

RADIO DETECTIVES IN THE JUNGLE

CHAPTER I—STRANGE PLACES

A hurricane had swept through the West Indies leaving death and destruction in its path and wrecking scores of vessels, uprooting trees, stripping the tops from palms, destroying crops and blowing down the flimsy native houses.

Now that it was over and there was no danger of its return those ships that had escaped the storm within snug harbors began to creep forth to resume their interrupted voyages. Some were uninjured. Others had rigging or deck fittings carried away, while some were so badly crippled that they limped as rapidly as possible towards the nearest dry dock for repairs.

Among them was a lean gray destroyer which slipped out of Coral Bay at St. John and headed her sharp prow southward. That she had borne the brunt of the terrific gale was evident, for of her four funnels only two were standing, her decks had been swept bare, fathoms of her railings had been carried away and from half way up her military mast she was white with encrusted salt. But she had received no vital injury. From her two remaining funnels dense volumes of smoke were pouring, a busy crowd of bluejackets labored like ants at repairing the damages to superstructure and fittings and, despite the buffeting she had received and the fact that half her boilers were out of commission until the funnels could be replaced, she slid through the oily seas at a twenty-knot clip.

To those who have followed the Radio Detectives through their previous adventures the group upon the crippled destroyer’s decks will need no introduction. There was the trim, spick-and-span Commander Disbrow, the deep-sea diver, Rawlins, Mr. Pauling and his friend Mr. Henderson and the two boys, Tom Pauling and his chum Frank.

But for the benefit of those who now meet the Radio Detectives for the first time a few words of explanation will be needed.

Months before the story opens, Tom Pauling and Frank had discovered a most astounding plot by means of their radio telephones and thereby enabled Tom’s father and his associate, Mr. Henderson, who were federal officers in the Secret Service, to make prisoners of a number of members of an international gang of scoundrels whose activities included the distribution of Bolshevist literature, the destruction of property, smuggling contraband liquor into the United States and conducting a widespread series of holdups, robberies and other crimes. Through confessions and other evidence Mr. Pauling and Mr. Henderson had learned that the arch criminal or master mind of the plot was hiding in a secret lair in the West Indies which--after a series of thrilling adventures on the part of the two boys and their companions, including Rawlins and Sam, a Bahaman negro--had been located, only to find that the leader of the criminals had slipped through the net set for him.

Then, influenced by a “hunch” on Rawlins’ part, Mr. Pauling and his companions had followed a tramp steamer, of which they were suspicious, to St. Thomas. Although there was no evidence conclusive enough to warrant holding the tramp, suspicion pointed to the fact that the leader of the gang of criminals was somewhere in the vicinity. Owing to mysterious radio messages, the party chartered a schooner and went to the neighboring island of St. John.

Here they met a Dutch naturalist named Van Brunt who was dealing with the “reds.” Rawlins, spying on him, was held up and narrowly escaped death at the hands of a man whom he recognized as the master criminal they were seeking. Later, this man was found dead and proved to be a person disguised to impersonate the real leader, while Van Brunt visited the schooner and convinced Mr. Pauling and Mr. Henderson that he was innocent and knew nothing of the “red’s” activities.

Becoming friendly with the boys, the Dutch scientist took them on a trip into the bush and while they were in a huge cave, deserted them. Soon afterwards a severe hurricane swept the island, imprisoning the two boys within the cavern by a tree falling across the entrance. In the meantime the other members of the party were compelled to seek refuge from the hurricane in the village on shore and were amazed to see the tramp steamer entering the harbor to escape the storm. As soon as the gale was over a searching party started out to find the missing boys and discovered that Van Brunt’s house had been destroyed by lightning.

While they were hunting for the boys, Tom and Frank had been made prisoners by a red-bearded man whom they knew was one of the gang. They had been placed on a submarine where Van Brunt confronted them, admitting he was a member of the “reds” and had purposely betrayed the boys. From the submarine they were taken to a locked cabin on a vessel and later were rescued in a most astounding manner by Sam, the Bahaman, who also killed Van Brunt. During their imprisonment the boys had overheard a plot to capture the other members of the party by means of a decoy letter and reaching their friends safely Tom and Frank related their tale in time to save the others from falling into the scoundrels’ trap. Soon afterwards a destroyer, which was in constant touch with the schooner by radio, arrived in response to Mr. Pauling’s summons. The tramp, in a last desperate attempt to escape, tried to run down the schooner but failed owing to Rawlins’ quick wit. Then, turning, the tramp endeavored to leave the harbor by a narrow entrance, but was sunk by a shot from the destroyer’s guns.

From the boys’ descriptions and Sam’s discoveries the Americans learned that the tramp was a “mother ship” for the submarine with a huge cradle or opening in the hull wherein the underseas boat could rest and be carried from place to place. But although a search was made of the wrecked tramp no trace of either the submarine or of bodies could be found. Mr. Pauling and the others felt convinced, however, that the leader of the gang was still at large and while discussing this matter their attention was drawn to a seaplane which they decided was a United States government machine sent from Porto Rico or St. Thomas to learn the cause of the explosion.

After the aircraft had disappeared the party returned to the destroyer and to their amazement were given a radio message from the aviator which Mr. Pauling recognized as coming from the arch criminal whom they were seeking.

But although their quarry had once more escaped them and had taken to the air, Rawlins insisted they would yet capture him and pointed out that the seaplane must descend and that when it did they should be on hand.

Although it seemed but a slim chance, still the diver’s hunches had invariably proved so reliable that Mr. Pauling had at once decided to take Rawlins’ advice and, transferring himself and his party to the partially disabled destroyer, had at once started forth to search the neighboring islands for the aircraft which had last been seen flying southward.

And as the lean gray craft slipped out of the shelter of Coral Bay and felt the heave of the Caribbean sea, Rawlins was speaking. “Airplanes aren’t so common down here that they can fly over the islands without being noticed,” he asserted. “If we stop in at them here and there we ought to be able to trail him. He’d have to head for some place and by finding out where he’s been seen we can get his direction. I’ll bet he’s got some hang-out down here. Of course, he could land on the water, but it would have to be in the lee of an island even if he was going to be picked up by a ship.”

“Or the submarine,” put in Mr. Pauling. “Don’t forget that the chances are the sub escaped and is to meet him.”

“Yes, but he can’t land on a sub and he couldn’t have started off from it. No, he’s either got some ship or a secret landing place and hangar for his plane on shore. Besides, if he tries sending messages the boys can pick them up.”

“To my mind,” declared Mr. Henderson. “It is like hunting for the proverbial needle in the haystack. There are a score and more of islands--to say nothing of cays--and although he started south we have no means of knowing how soon he may have shifted his course. Why, even now, he may be over in Santo Domingo, Cuba or Tortuga or he may have turned east to St. Barts or Barbuda. If we went to every island we would be here for the next year.”

“I’ll say we would!” laughed Rawlins. “But we don’t need to. Once we pick up his trail and know his course it’ll be easy. A fellow can’t fly far in any direction without being in sight of an island and if we lose him we can easily find his trail again by calling at an island or two.”

“Sounds easy, I admit,” remarked Mr. Henderson rather sarcastically. “But what is to prevent him from going straight across to South America for example? Then we’d have a nice job trying to find where he landed--I suppose we’d have to hunt the entire northern coast of the continent.”

“I expect you’re jollying me a bit,” replied the diver, “but honest Injun you know he couldn’t make a nonstop flight to South America from here and if he took a course for there our job would be all the easier. There are only a few islands between here and South America, in a direct line you know. I think the best place to ask will be Statia or St. Croix. Then, if they haven’t seen or heard him, we can swing to the east to St. Kitts or St. Barts.”

“I’m backing your hunch you know, Rawlins,” asserted Mr. Pauling, “and if you say St. Croix first, St. Croix it is. We’re outside now and we’d better give Commander Disbrow his course.”

“Well, I guess we’ll make it Statia first,” replied Rawlins after a moment’s thought. “It’s the nearest and in nearly a direct line with the course he took. Besides, the Dutch captain of the tramp may still be in the hospital there. If he is we can see him and maybe pump some information from him. Perhaps, if he knows his ship’s gone to Davy Jones and the others have skedaddled he’ll come across with a confession to clear his own skirts.”

“Yes, that’s a good scheme,” agreed Mr. Pauling. “We’ll make Statia first then.”

The two boys had thought St. Thomas and St. John fascinating and beautiful, but as the towering volcanic cone of St. Eustatius or “Statia” as it is more often called, rose above the sea with the far reaching, rich green hills and cloud-piercing, frowning heights of St. Kitts to the east, they could only gaze in rapt admiration and declared they had never seen anything so wonderful or beautiful.

“Wait until you see the other islands,” said Rawlins, laughing at the boys’ excited exclamations of delight. “Why, St. Kitts over there isn’t anything compared to Dominica or Martinique and as for Statia--well of course it looks high and it’s striking because it’s small and the cone is so perfect in shape, but it’s no bigger than little St. John and it would be only a hill on Guadeloupe or Dominica.”

“Gee, I hope the old seaplane went everywhere so we can see all the islands,” declared Tom. “It’s a shame we are down here and won’t see those you talk about.”

“Maybe we will,” said the diver. “At any rate, we’re bound to see some of them, but look over there to the west. See that big cone sticking up to the right of Statia? Well that’s the strangest island in the West Indies if not in the world. It’s Saba.”

“But no one lives there!” complained Frank, who was studying the conical mass of rock rising abruptly for a thousand feet above the sea.

“Don’t they!” exclaimed Rawlins. “I’ll say they do! But you can’t see ’em or their houses from the sea. Saba’s just a big volcano--dead of course. The town’s in the crater--about eight hundred feet above the sea. It’s called ‘Bottom.’ The people are Dutch and speak English and if you visited ’em you’d have to climb a stairway cut in the rocks with eight hundred steps. And I’ll bet my boots to a herring you can’t guess what the folks who live up in that crater do for a living.”

“No, but I should think they might make balloons or airplanes,” replied Tom.

“’Twould be more appropriate,” agreed Rawlins, “but instead they make boats! Carry the lumber up that stairway--it’s called ‘The Ladder’--build the boats in the crater and lower ’em over the mountain side just as if they were launching ’em from a ship.”

“Oh, you’re just kidding us!” declared Tom, “That’s too big a yarn!”

“True, nevertheless,” his father, who had drawn near, assured him. “I’ve heard of it before.”

“’Course it’s true!” avowed the diver. “And there are a lot of other blamed funny things about Saba that are true. All the folks keep their coffins in their houses and look after ’em just like the other furniture and most of the young men are sailors. I know two or three who are mates of big transatlantic liners. And the town’s so high up they can grow potatoes and strawberries and such things there.”

“But who do they sell them to?” asked Frank.

“Take ’em over to St. Kitts mostly,” Rawlins told him.

“Well, I’d like to go there,” declared Tom. “Don’t you suppose they saw the airplane? If they’re so high up, they might have got a good view of it.”

“Sure they might,” agreed Rawlins. “But if they did, the folks on Statia did too, and it’s no easy job landing at Saba--no dock or harbor--just a tiny strip of pebbly beach among the rocks. It’s impossible to go ashore if there’s any sea running.”

“I call that too bad!” said Frank. “I suppose there’s nothing very odd or interesting about Statia.”

“Well, I guess it’s not so interesting as Saba,” admitted the diver. “But it’s pretty interesting if you know it’s history. It’s the first place where the American flag was saluted and during the Revolutionary War it was the richest and busiest port in the world. And the biggest auction the world’s ever seen was held there. You’ll not see any ships or warehouses to speak of at Orange Town now, but you’ll see the remains of the old ones.”

“Then why was it given up?” asked Tom.

“’Twasn’t!” laughed Rawlins. “At least, not purposely. You see, during the Revolution, Statia, being Dutch and a free port, was used as a clearing place for the French, British, and Americans. It was neutral, and all the goods going in or out of the West Indies were sent there and stored until called for by ships. But the English sent a warship and seized everything, and then auctioned off the whole lot--ships and merchandise both--and of course, the business was never resumed.”

“How do you happen to know so much about all these places, may I ask?” inquired Mr. Henderson. “You seem to be a sort of walking gazetteer of the West Indies.”

Rawlins chuckled. “Well, you see,” he answered, “father was a sea captain before he took to salvage work and I used to go on trips with him from the time I was a kid, knee high to a grasshopper. His old hooker had a West Indian trade route and I saw nearly all the islands and what I didn’t see for myself he told me about. Then, when I took to diving I got a lot of work down here.”

“Ah, I understand,” said Mr. Henderson. “And, knowing the islands so well, could you suggest any one--or several--which would be suitable as landing places for that plane?”

“Sure,” replied the diver. “He could land at pretty nearly any of them--or rather near them. There are long stretches of uninhabited coast on all. Even Barbados, which is the most densely inhabited, has plenty of places where a plane could slip in and none be wiser--only they’d see him coming and run like blazes to watch him come down. No, I don’t expect he’ll try landing near any of the big islands. More likely he’d pick some small cay or outlying islet--there are several around Martinique and Guadeloupe and--by glory, yes! There’s Aves. Great Scott! I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Aves!” repeated Mr. Pauling, questioningly. “You mean the place down off the Venezuelan coast--‘The pleasant Isle of Aves’--in the old pirate song?”

“No, another one,” replied Rawlins. “A tiny bit of land about one hundred miles west of Dominica in the middle of the Caribbean. It’s an ideal spot. Not an inhabitant; flat as a table--although that’s no advantage with a sea plane--and out of the course of all shipping. I’ve a hunch that’s his place.”

Mr. Pauling laughed. “Your hunches are coming thick and fast, Rawlins,” he said. “Is this one so strong you want to shift our course for the island?”

The diver grinned. “Not quite,” he replied. “But if we get on his trail and it looks like Aves I’m for it.”

“Well, we’ll soon know if he passed Statia,” remarked Tom. “We’re almost there.”

CHAPTER II—A CRY FOR HELP

As the destroyer drew into the little port of Orange Town, it seemed as if every inhabitant of the quaint Dutch island had come to the waterfront to welcome her, for the arrival of any ship, let alone a destroyer, was a remarkable event in Statia. Since the little warship was now visiting the island for the second time within a fortnight, the people felt as if their island must be becoming famous.

No sooner had the party landed from the cutter than Rawlins began questioning the natives in regard to the seaplane, but for some time no one could be found who had seen it. The diver was just about to give up and had declared his belief that the plane had not passed the island, when a gray-headed, broad-faced old man, whose yellow skin and kinky hair betokened negro blood and whose features and blue eyes were thoroughly Dutch, pushed through the crowd and told Rawlins he had seen the machine passing over.

To the diver’s questions the old man replied that he had been working on his little plantation on the windward side of the island when he had heard a strange noise and, glancing up, had been amazed to see something like a huge bird flying far overhead. For a time he could not imagine what it was and then he remembered the pictures and accounts of airplanes he had seen in the illustrated papers that arrived at Statia at rare intervals and realized that he was actually gazing upon one of the marvelous things which he had always half believed were impossible. In fact, he added, he had come to town for the sole purpose of relating his story to his friends, but all had scoffed at him and had declared he had been mistaken.

“Not a bit of it!” cried Rawlins. “You saw one all right, my friend. What direction was the plane going?”

The old man was not sure, for his mind had been so fully occupied with the wonder of the sight that he had not noted its course, but after a deal of thinking he decided it had been bound for St. Kitts.

“Well, that knocks out my theory about Aves a bit,” declared Rawlins. “But there are plenty of spots around St. Kitts where he could have landed or he might have gone on to Nevis. Now let’s get up to the hospital and see that old walrus of a Dutch captain.”

As they walked towards the tiny hospital, the boys expressed surprise that there seemed to be no damage from the hurricane.

“Out of its track,” explained Rawlins. “Remember, I told you those hurricanes are narrow. Of course, there’s got to be an edge to ’em some place, and besides, they follow pretty regular routes. I’ll bet St. Kitts got it, and yet over here--only a few miles away--they never felt it.”

When they reached the hospital all hopes of securing information from the skipper of the tramp were abandoned, however, for the attendants told the Americans that the Dutch sea captain had been taken away the previous day by some friends who had called for him.

“That’s blamed funny!” exclaimed Rawlins. “They told me down in the town that no ship had been in port since the hurricane.”

“Hmm,” mused Mr. Pauling. “Perhaps they were friends living on the island.” Then, turning to the young doctor who was in charge, he asked, “What sort of men were they? Can you describe them? Did they mention how they arrived here?”

“Why, no, I did not ask,” replied the interne, who spoke perfect English. “I assumed they came in a vessel--small sloops and schooners often put in from St. Kitts and there are packets coming here from Curacao. They seemed to be seafaring men--not Hollanders, though. One was a heavily built man with a red beard--German or Russian I should say. The other was an American, I think--or possibly English--tall, and very broad, with a smooth face and dark hair.”

Mr. Pauling and the others glanced at one another with knowing looks, and an exclamation of surprise escaped from Mr. Pauling’s lips.

“I’ll say they were his friends!” cried Rawlins, as the party, after thanking the doctor, left the hospital. “And not far away right now. Beat us by twenty-four hours, but, by glory, we’ve picked up their trail!”

“But how could they get here?” asked Tom. “They didn’t come in the airplane or by a ship.”

“By the sub, of course!” replied the diver. “I told you I’d bet she got clear before the old tramp blew up. And now they’re hiking off to meet that plane.”

“If they haven’t already met her,” put in Mr. Henderson. “Rawlins, I’m beginning to have as much faith in your hunches as Pauling.”

“Well, it’s up to us to find out,” insisted the diver. “It’ll be a hard job to trail the sub, but as long as the High Cockalorum is up in the air, we can keep tabs on him. Let’s get a move on and strike over to St. Kitts. The faster we get after those boys the better.”

“But how could the sub come in here without being seen?” asked Frank.

“Couldn’t,” responded Rawlins tersely, “but a small boat from her could. Or maybe they landed at St. Kitts and came over in a sloop. We’ll find out down at the bayside.”

“That’s one advantage of a small place where every one knows every one else and visitors are rare,” remarked Mr. Pauling when, after a few questions, they learned that the red-bearded stranger and his companion had arrived in a small schooner and had departed in the same vessel with the Dutch sea captain.

“Yes, these islands are mighty poor places for crooks,” agreed Mr. Henderson. “I imagine that’s why every one is so honest and crime is so rare.”

A few moments later they reached the destroyer, and as they stepped aboard Commander Disbrow approached.

“I have a bit of news that may interest you, Mr. Pauling,” he announced. “We picked up the Guiana--Furness liner, you know--and had a chat with her. Never thought of getting any news of your man--just wanted data on the hurricane--and she reports having sighted an airplane, or rather a sea plane, to the south of Montserrat. Said they thought it a United States machine and tried to signal it but had no response. Reported it as flying south--apparently bound for Guadeloupe or Dominica and about three thousand feet up.”

“Bully for you!” Cried Rawlins enthusiastically. “That saves us a jaunt over to St. Kitts or Nevis. When did the Guiana sight it?”

“About five o’clock last night,” replied the Commander.

“Then he was pretty near his landing place!” declared the diver. “He couldn’t go on after dark. Come on, Commander, let’s beat it for Guadeloupe!”

Half an hour later Statia was scarcely more than a blue cloud on the horizon and St. Kitts loomed hazy and indistinct, while the towering conical volcanic cone of Nevis lay to the eastward.

Although the boys had been disappointed at not being able to visit these fascinating islands, they had learned much about them from Rawlins and Commander Disbrow. They had heard about the abandoned forts on Brimstone Hill at St. Kitts and about the troops of monkeys which haunt the old barracks and parapets. They had learned, also, for the first time in their lives, that Nevis was the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton and was famous as the spot where Admiral Nelson had been married. But such matters of historical interest appealed far less to the boys than Rawlins’ story of the submerged city of Jamestown which was destroyed by an earthquake and sank below the sea in 1689.

“Say, wouldn’t it be fun to go down there in a diving suit and look around!” said Tom, when the diver had described how the coral-encrusted ruins could still be seen through the water on calm days.

“Yep,” agreed Rawlins. “I’ve often kind of hankered to have a look at it--and at Port Royal, over in Jamaica. That slid into the sea one day--with a lot of treasure in it, too. It used to be a regular hang-out for the pirates and the whole shooting match went under during an earthquake in 1692. Some considerable spell of time since then, but I shouldn’t wonder if a diver could find something there.”

“Gee, I wouldn’t like to live down here where towns have the habit of getting drowned,” declared Frank.

Mr. Pauling laughed. “People who live in earthquake or volcanic countries become accustomed to such things,” he said. “Even St. Pierre, Martinique, where nearly forty thousand people were killed, is being built up and inhabited again, I hear.”

A little later, land was reported ahead and through their glasses the boys saw a rounded, gray mass breaking the sea line. This, the Commander told them, was Redonda, and he added that it was an isolated, barren rock, whose only inhabitants were the lighthouse keeper and a small company of laborers who were employed in gathering the phosphate rock.

Then, beyond, and so green that, as Tom said, it looked like a bit of green velvet, the island of Montserrat gradually rose above the horizon before the speeding destroyer.

“Gosh, that is an emerald isle!” exclaimed Frank.

“Yes, and a little Ireland too,” agreed Rawlins. “If you went ashore there, you’d think you were dreaming. Every one of the niggers speaks with a brogue and there are Mulvaneys and Dennises and Muldoons as black as the ace of spades and some of them with red hair. You see, Montserrat was settled originally by the Irish and the brogue and the names have come down through generations.”

“It seems to me we’re leaving all the most interesting places without seeing them,” said Frank regretfully. “I’d like mighty well to see Irish negroes.”

“You must remember we’re neither on a pleasure cruise or a joy ride,” Mr. Pauling reminded him. “And you’re fortunate even to see the islands.”

Then, turning to Rawlins, he asked, “Have you definite plans in view, Rawlins? I suppose there is no use in stopping at Montserrat as long as the Guiana reported the plane south of there.”

“No, I’m going to ask you to let the Commander just hustle the old girl right along and radio Guadeloupe for information. He ought to be able to get it now. If they sighted the plane, we’ll have to try Dominica, but there’s no radio station there and I’m still betting on Aves. You remember, about that looting of the bank at Dominica? Well, if they had a hang-out at Aves, that would have been dead easy. I think, unless we hear he passed Guadeloupe headed away from it, that we’ll hike to Aves without stopping.”

Mr. Pauling chuckled. “It seems to me that Henderson and I are scarcely more than accessories now,” he declared. “Everything seems to have fallen into your hands. But that’s quite right, Rawlins. You know the islands and we don’t, and we’re following your hunch, you know.”

A few moments later, Bancroft, the wireless operator, appeared. “We got Guadeloupe, Sir,” he informed Mr. Pauling. “They have no report of an airship.”

“By glory, then ’tis Aves!” cried Rawlins. “There isn’t another spot he could have made before dark last night.”

“Unless he came down at some out of the way part of Guadeloupe,” put in Mr. Henderson. “I’ve been talking with Disbrow and he says it’s a wild, little known coast, with few inhabitants.”

“Yes,” agreed the diver. “But I figure this way. That’s not the first time the Old Boy has used a plane--and you can’t grab a seaplane at any old time and place when the spirit moves you. No, he keeps that machine for emergencies or uses it as a regular thing between certain bases of his own and, even if he could make a landing at Guadeloupe or one of the inhabited islands without being seen, he couldn’t keep the plane there unknown to any one. That’s why I’m strong on the Aves hunch. He could have anything he wanted there, and none the wiser.”

“Your reasoning is sound,” declared Mr. Pauling, “and I agree with you. When should we reach Aves?”

“We could make it to-night,” replied the Commander, to whom Mr. Pauling had addressed the last query, “but I’d prefer to slow down and make it by daybreak--its a mere speck and scarcely ten feet above water and there’s a risk in running for it in the dark.”

“Yes, by all means, wait for dawn,” assented Mr. Pauling. “We could accomplish nothing at night and if there are men there, our lights might warn them.”

Accordingly, the destroyer slowed down and with the vast bulk of Guadeloupe stretching for miles along the eastern horizon, the little vessel slid easily through the sea towards her goal. As usual, Bancroft or one of the boys constantly listened at the radio receivers, but no sounds, save the messages passing between two distant merchant ships, came in.

With the first faint streaks of light upon the eastern sky, the destroyer picked up speed and tore southward for the tiny speck of land that lay below the horizon ahead. The forward gun was manned and ready for emergencies; the two boys and their companions peered anxiously through the gray dawn for a first glimpse of the sought-for islet, and all thrilled with expectancy and excitement.

“There ’tis!” cried Rawlins, who was the first to catch a glimpse of the tiny gray smudge that broke the even level of the sea’s rim.

Instantly, all glasses were focused on the spot and rapidly it rose and took form as a low, flat-topped bit of land, rimmed with white surf and with clouds of sea birds wheeling above it. So low was the island that within half an hour of first sighting it, the destroyer was as close to it as the Commander dared approach and all were anxiously searching the desolate spot for some sign of life or of the plane.

“Looks as if your hunch were wrong for once, Rawlins,” said Mr. Pauling. “I don’t see a sign of anything but bare rock and birds.”

“Well, it’s all-fired funny,” declared the diver, “but I’m not sure even yet. Maybe the plane’s on the other side of the island or in some cove. I won’t be satisfied until I’ve searched every inch of the place.”

But when, a few minutes later, they landed upon this isolated, almost unknown bit of forsaken land and were almost deafened by the screams, cries, and protests of the countless thousands of gulls, terns, gannets, pelicans and boobies that made it their home, the island seemed absolutely devoid of all traces of human beings. Rawlins, however, insisted there was no other place where the sea plane could have found a resting place for the night and he searched here, there and everywhere.

Finally, when the party had almost completed the circuit of the little ten-acre spot, the diver, who was in advance, gave a shout.

“I’ll say they were here!” he announced as the others hurried to where he stood at the head of a deep indentation or cove in the rocky shore. “Look here,” he continued, pointing to the bit of sandy beach, “a boat’s been pulled up on the sand here within the last twenty-four hours and there are their empty gasolene tins. Guess my hunch wasn’t so far wrong after all.”

“Hmm,” muttered Mr. Pauling, as he examined the marks on the beach and sniffed at the empty tin cans. “I’ll have to admit your hunch was right, but it doesn’t do us much good. Our birds have flown.”

“Yes, hang it all!” exclaimed Rawlins. “They probably saw us coming and cleared out, but they’ll have to land again somewhere.”

“That’s quite true and all very well,” agreed Mr. Pauling, “but we haven’t the least idea where or when. No, it’s no use trying to chase all over the Caribbean after them. There’s nothing to do but go back and await future developments. I’m willing to admit we’ve been beaten.”

“Yes, the gang’s broken up and the tramp and their big submarine destroyed. I doubt if they’ll give further trouble,” said Mr. Henderson. “I think we’ve succeeded in accomplishing a great deal as it is.”

While they were talking, they approached the waiting cutter. Suddenly a screeching roar from the destroyer’s siren drowned the clamor of the birds.

“Jove! What’s that for?” exclaimed Mr. Henderson. “Hello, Disbrow’s signaling. Can you read the wigwag message, Rawlins?”

The diver stared fixedly at the figure of a sailor standing clearly outlined on the destroyer’s bridge and rapidly waving the little flags in an endeavor to convey some message to those on the island.

“Come a-b-o-a-r-d,” translated Rawlins, as the flags flashed up and down. “I-m-p-o-r-t-a-n-t n-e-w-s.”

“By glory!” he ejaculated, as the sailor finished and the message ended. “What in blazes has he seen?”

Rapidly, they hurried to the boat, scrambled in, and were soon speeding towards the destroyer, all impatient to learn what had occurred to cause them to be summoned and utterly at a loss as to what the “important news” could be.

“Great Scott, but he’s in a hurry!” cried Rawlins, as the sound of the anchor winch and the rattle of incoming cable reached them. “He’s getting in his anchors already. And he’s pacing up and down as if the deck were red hot. I wonder what’s up!”

“It’s an S. O. S.!” announced the Commander, as Mr. Pauling gained the deck, “and it might mean anything. Came in ‘S. O. S.--submarine’ and then stopped short. Not another word.”

Before he had ceased speaking, the destroyer’s screws were churning the water and the island was rapidly slipping away.

“By Jove!” exclaimed Mr. Pauling. “Looks as if these men were up to their old game! But where was the ship when she called? Do you know her position?”

“No, only in a general way,” replied the Commander. “Bancroft got the message by accident--was overhauling the radio compass when he picked it up. That’s the only way we know even the direction. They’re southwest, that’s all we know.”

“I’ll say that’s important news!” cried Rawlins. “That shows the sub’s still afloat, but I’d like to know what the dickens became of the plane.”

“Do you think they really sank a ship?” asked Tom. “Why, they can’t expect to get away with that sort of thing!”

“Of course, they did,” declared Mr. Pauling. “Otherwise the vessel would not have sent the S. O. S. and the very fact that the message was cut off shows they did. Poor fellows! They never had a chance and we may be too late to save them now. As for getting away with it, these men are desperate--utterly unprincipled, as you know. Nothing they can do will make their plight any worse. They’ve sunk ships before--so why not again?”

“But why should they?” persisted Tom. “I should think they’d just be trying to get away, not stopping to sink ships.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” declared Rawlins. “The whole thing’s blamed funny. I’ve a hunch it’s all a blind. I’ll bet that message was sent by the sub or the plane just to get us away from here--or something.”

“Hunches or not, I’m not taking chances,” declared the Commander stiffly. “If I get an S. O. S. I answer.”

“Righto!” exclaimed the diver. “Glad you do. And, if luck’s with us, we may get there in time to sight the sub and kill two birds with one stone.”

But to find a ship or its survivors when its exact latitude and longitude are known and to find such a tiny speck upon the broad ocean when only its general direction is known are two very different matters. So meager had been the sudden call for aid which had reached the destroyer that no one could say whether the ship that sent it had been five or fifty miles away and as there had been no time in which to move the loop antenna of the radio compass about until the exact direction was determined, the chances of the destroyer’s finding the vessel or any of her company were very remote. Throughout the day and all through the night the destroyer searched, steaming in circles and with her powerful searchlights sweeping the sea.

In the hopes that another signal might yet come in, men were kept constantly at the radio instruments listening and sending forth messages, but the only replies received were from far distant ships asking what the trouble was. To all of these the operators gave what little information they had and asked if others had heard the frenzied call for help. But only one had, a tramp bound from Cuba for Curacao, and unlike the destroyer she had received the S. O. S. by her regular antenna and so could not know the direction whence it came.

“Well, some of those ships may pick up the poor rascals,” said Mr. Henderson when on the following morning Commander Disbrow reported the messages which had been exchanged. “But it’s odd none of them heard the call except that tramp.”

“I think that proves the vessel was near us,” declared Tom. “If Mr. Bancroft got it on the loop and they couldn’t hear it on their regular aerials, the message must have been sent from very close.”

“Yes, that’s quite true,” agreed Mr. Henderson. “But it doesn’t make matters much simpler. Even a few square miles of sea is a big place.”

“You said it!” exclaimed Rawlins. “And a blamed sight bigger to the poor beggars hanging on to wreckage or in a small boat than to us. But I still have an idea it was a blind. That would account for those ships not getting it.”

“I don’t just see what you mean,” said Mr. Pauling.

“Why, if it was sent from the sub or the plane, it would be a weak message and wouldn’t go far and it may have been sent from within half a mile of the island. Yes, by glory!--Come to think of it, they might have been right there alongside and just sent that message from underwater!”

“Jove, I hadn’t thought of that!” admitted Mr. Pauling. “I wonder--”

Before he could complete his sentence, the deep-throated cry of the lookout rang through the little ship, and at his words all crowded to the rails and peered ahead.

“Small boat two points off the starboard bow!” was the sailor’s shout.

CHAPTER III—THE CASTAWAYS

Very small and pitiful appeared the tiny speck bobbing up and down upon that wide expanse of restless sea in the faint morning light. But rapidly it took on form as the destroyer slid hissing through the sparkling water toward it. Through their glasses the boys could see that it was a ship’s lifeboat filled with men and that one of the occupants was standing up and wildly waving a bit of cloth fastened to an oar.

“I’ll say they’re mighty glad to see us!” exclaimed Rawlins. “By gravy, it makes me think of war times again! Confound those sneaking Bolsheviks, they’re as bad as the Huns.”

“Worse,” declared Mr. Pauling tersely. “The Germans had the excuse of war and these rascals are merely cutthroats. I wonder if this boat’s the only one that escaped.”

“We’ll know in a moment,” said Mr. Henderson. “Lucky we found them--there wasn’t one chance in a million. Things like this make the most skeptical believe in the Almighty.”

“And the fact that that bunch on the sub get away with it makes a fellow believe in Satan as well,” supplemented the diver.

A moment later the destroyer’s engines ceased to throb; she slipped gently through the waves, and presently was resting motionless, rising and falling, while the ocean castaways bent to the oars and pulled around in her lee.

Then a coil of line spun from the hands of a waiting bluejacket, the man in the bow of the lifeboat caught it and the next instant the haggard-faced occupants of the little craft were being helped over the destroyer’s rail.

There were twenty-two in all--a motley, cosmopolitan lot, the typical crew of a modern steamship. Tow-headed, broad-faced Scandinavians; sallow, black-haired, blue-cheeked Spaniards, whose greasy trousers and grimy faces marked them as wipers, firemen and engine room crew; a few swarthy Italians; one or two who might have been of almost any nationality; two colored men; and a broad-shouldered, ruddy-faced individual with keen, pale blue eyes who was evidently in command.

“Strike me pink, but we’re lucky beggars!” exclaimed the latter, as he leaped on to the destroyer’s deck.

“Are you the captain?” asked Commander Disbrow. “Glad to have saved you. We got your radio yesterday morning, but had little chance of finding you. More luck than anything else. All your crew accounted for?”

The Englishman drew himself up and saluted in true naval style. “No, Sir,” he exclaimed. “I’m the chief officer, ship Devonshire, Liverpool for Trinidad and Demerara. Captain Masters lost ’is life, Sir--defending ’is ship, Sir.”

“Brave man!” exclaimed Mr. Pauling. “Went down with his ship, I suppose.”

The Englishman turned and looked at him in surprise. “Whatever do you mean, Sir?” he exclaimed. “Bless us, the ship wasn’t sunk, Sir. Captain Masters was shot down on his bridge, Sir.”

“The ship wasn’t sunk!” cried Mr. Pauling. “Then why are you adrift in a small boat and why did you send an S. O. S. and what did occur? Come, let’s get this matter straightened out at once!”

“The ship was took, Sir. Made a prize of by the bloody submarine--begging your pardon for the word, Sir. It was this way, Sir. The dirty beggars never gave us arf a chance--played a dirty Hun trick on us, the swine! You see, Sir, we sighted a drifting boat full of men and bore down and took them abroad, Sir, and no sooner were they over the rail than they whips out their revolvers and orders our ’ands up. Blow me for a bloomin’ fish if we wasn’t took that by surprise, Sir, that we does it, Sir. All but the Captain and ‘Sparks.’ They were looking on--you know all hands always crowds the rails to see what’s going on when a boat’s picked up, Sir--and it was all over in a minute. No sooner had they stuck us up than the bloomin’ sub bobs up. With that we was all aback and that dazed, with the suddenness of it and the sub and all, that we don’t rightly know what to make of it, Sir. And then ‘Sparks’ makes a dash for his room and Captain Masters fires at the dirty swine just as one of them jumps after ‘Sparks.’ I see, poor ‘Sparks’ stagger and lurch into his door and the bloomin’ beggar what shot him drops and the next second there’s a rifle shot from the sub and Captain Masters springs up and pitches into the sea, Sir. You say you got a radio from the ship, Sir? Then ‘Sparks’ must ’ave got it off before he died, Sir.”

“Yes, yes!” cried Mr. Pauling. “That accounts for the message ending half finished; but go on, what happened after the captain and the operator were shot?”

“Why, the blinkin’ bloomin’ devils just lined us up and ordered us into a boat and sent a crew abroad the Devonshire from the sub. And just afore they steamed off an left us, Sir, strike me purple hif a bloomin’ airplane didn’t show up! Blow me, but I thought we was saved, Sir. But instead of savin’ of us the blighted plane parses us by and goes along of the ship, Sir, and there we was adrift in an open boat with only a gallon of water and no provisions and no compass and a makin’ up our minds to face death and old Davy Jones like proper British sea-man--though only five of us was British--when we sights your little ship, Sir.”

“What course did they steer?” snapped out Commander Disbrow.

“About south by east--as near as I could judge by the sun, Sir,” replied the officer.

The next instant, sharp, quick orders had been given, and, as if shot from a bow, the destroyer leaped into sudden speed and surged through the sea towards the south.

Then, as the rescued men were half starved and worn out, the questions which Mr. Pauling and his friends were so anxious to ask were put off until the latest victims of the dastardly “reds” could be fed and rested.

Twenty-four hours in an open boat, (twelve of them under a blazing tropical sun), without food and with but a gallon of water for twenty-two men, might kill the average landsmen, but the survivors of the Devonshire seemed to be affected very little by the hardships of their experience and declared that a hearty meal and a few hours’ rest were all they needed to make them “perfectly fit” as Robinson, the chief-officer, put it.

While they were resting, Mr. Pauling and his companions were busily discussing this latest exploit of the men they were trying to run down and by deduction and reasoning were striving to fathom the “reds” object in taking possession of the Devonshire as well as their next moves.

“My opinion is that they are making for some port in order to escape unsuspected,” declared Mr. Henderson. “They had no refuge they could reach in the submarine or seaplane when they found us hot on their trail and approaching Aves. But by steaming boldly into port with a freight steamer, they could then desert and scatter without arousing suspicions until they had disappeared.”

“That’s my idea also,” affirmed Mr. Pauling. “But I’m at a loss to understand why they should continue to use the plane. If that appeared at any port, it would at once attract attention. I should have imagined that they would have sunk it or destroyed it and would all have taken to the Devonshire.”

“Perhaps they did--later,” suggested Mr. Henderson, “but they cannot escape us. They have only twenty-four hours’ start, we can make twice the freighter’s speed, and the nearest port is a good thirty-six or forty hours’ run in the direction they steamed.”

“Yes, but don’t count on their keeping that course,” said Rawlins. “They’re foxy guys and they may have steered south by east just to fool those boys in the boat. As soon as hull down they may have swung to east or west--or even turned on their tracks and headed north. Darned funny they were decent enough not to murder the whole crew. And my idea about the plane is that they’re using her for a scout to warn them of other ships. From a few thousand feet up, the pilot of the plane can spot a ship way below the horizon and the Devonshire can keep clear of ’em. Why, by glory! they could probably spot us and know we’re following them. I’ll say we’ve got some job cut out for us, if we’re going to try to run ’em down. And when it gets dark they can slip away, easy as is. Now I don’t want to butt in all the time, but my idea would be to fight them with their own weapons--play their own game and fool ’em. If we shift our course as if we’d given up or were on the wrong track and send out a few fake radio messages, they’ll think we’ve given up and they’ll beat it for some port. Then, by tipping off the port authorities, they can nab the bunch when they arrive.”

“Hmm,” muttered Mr. Pauling. “A very good plan, Rawlins, except for one or two flaws in it. For example, if we tip off the authorities, what is to prevent those on the Devonshire from hearing the messages and acting accordingly? And if we don’t know the course they’re actually taking, how can we shift ours in such a way as to make them feel sure we have abandoned the chase? Finally, how will we know what port they intend entering? They might sail for Europe or Asia or the South Seas, for all we know.”

“Well, you’ve stumped me on the first question, I admit,” chuckled the diver. “That’s your business Mr. Pauling--have to use some cipher I suppose. But the others are easy. If we send radio messages to some nearby port that we’re coming in--asking to have supplies or stores ready, for instance--those Bolsheviks will bite all right. And as far as knowing what port they’ll head for is concerned, if they think they’re not being chased they’ll go to the port where there’s the least danger and that’s where the ship’s papers are made out for--Trinidad or Demerara.”

“By Jove! I don’t know but what you’re right,” exclaimed Mr. Pauling. “I think I can arrange the cipher messages--in fact, in confidence, I can let you know that a code was all arranged long before we left St. Thomas. Every executive of every British and French colony down here knows it. We had reasons for not giving it to the Dutch in view of the suspicious actions of that Dutch tramp--and I’ll guarantee if the Devonshire puts into any British or French port, our piratical ‘reds’ will find they’ve stepped into a trap that’s set and baited.”

By the time Robinson reappeared on deck, looking a very different being from the haggard, dull-eyed seaman who had been rescued from the Devonshire’s boat, Mr. Pauling had conferred with Commander Disbrow and plans had been made in accordance with Rawlins’ suggestion. Robinson, when told of this, agreed with the diver that doubtless the “reds” intended sailing the Devonshire boldly into some port and then slipping away, one at a time. He also declared that he believed they would steam for either Trinidad or Demerara, as the ship’s papers were made out for those ports. In order to consult with him and secure his opinions, it was of course necessary to acquaint him somewhat with the activities of the fugitives, but he asked no questions and made no effort to learn more of Mr. Pauling’s mission than the latter saw fit to divulge.

“Was the Devonshire ever in Trinidad or Demerara, Mr. Robinson?” inquired Mr. Pauling. “That is, with Captain Masters and the other officers in command?”

“Not as far as I know,” replied the other. “I’ve been on her for three years and this is my first trip out here. She’s always been in the East Indian trade heretofore.”

“Ah, then that makes it still easier for the rascals,” commented Mr. Pauling. “They can readily pass themselves off for the ship’s officers. By the way, can you describe the appearance of any of the men who boarded the ship?”

“Strike me, Sir, but I was too struck ’twixt wind and water to take note of their appearance,” declared the officer. “I do remember one who appeared to be in command, however--a big chappie with a red beard.”

“That’s the one!” cried Rawlins. “By glory, I’d like to get my hands on him!”

“So would I, old thing,” declared Robinson. “But why the bally pirates let us free is a stumper for me. They might have known some ship might pick us up and we’d give the bloomin’ gaff away.”

“Yes, that is a puzzle,” agreed Mr. Henderson, “but I suppose even men of their type have a limit to the murders they commit.”

It had been decided to make for Dominica, partly because it was the nearest British island and the survivors of the Devonshire could be cared for there, and partly because Mr. Pauling and Mr. Henderson were anxious to see and talk with the officials regarding the looting of the bank, which had occurred some time before and which they believed had been done by the same gang of rascals they were trailing.

By the middle of the afternoon land was sighted, an opalescent, hazy mass topped by great banks of clouds and looking, as Tom expressed it, “more like a dream island than real land.”

As the destroyer drew rapidly nearer and sky-piercing peaks, vast blue gorges, endless forest-clad mountains, and wonderful golden-green valleys appeared, it looked more and more like a dream or a phantasy, for the boys could hardly believe that anything real could be so beautiful. Still it was far away and as the little warship slid smoothly through the incredibly blue sea that showed scarcely a wave in the massive island’s lee, the boys stood gazing steadfastly at this most picturesque and lovely of all the lovely Caribbean islands.

“Gosh, but I’m glad we decided to come here!” exclaimed Frank as Rawlins joined them at the rail. “When you told us back at Statia that St. Kitts couldn’t compare with Dominica I thought you were just joking, but gee, this is simply wonderful!”

“I’ll say ’tis!” replied the diver. “Every time I see it I get a new thrill. And you’ll find it mighty interesting, too. It was right off Dominica that Rodney licked the French and changed the history of the West Indies. There’s a mountain lake in a crater and an active volcano called the Boiling Lake here and over on the other side there’s an Indian settlement where the last pure-blooded Caribs in the West Indies live.”

“Oh, I do hope we stay long enough to see some of the place!” cried Tom.

“Why couldn’t we have been here instead of at St. Thomas or St. John?”

“Perhaps, if you’d radioed the skipper of the Dutch tramp or the red-bearded chap, they might have accommodated you and come here,” laughed Mr. Pauling who had approached. “But, joking aside, I’d like to see more of Dominica myself. It’s certainly a glorious sight.”

“What do they raise here?” asked Mr. Henderson, who had also joined the group.

“Limes mostly,” replied Rawlins. “The famous Rose lime juice all comes from Dominica. Father used to come here regularly for green limes and juice. It’s the biggest lime producing country in the world, I’ve heard him say.”

“Oh, I see the town!” cried Frank. “Right there at the mouth of that big valley!”

“Yes, that’s Roseau,” said Rawlins. “Not much of a town, but with a mighty fine botanic station. And you’ll find the natives interesting, too. Lots of them still wear the old creole dress and they all speak a queer Frenchy sort of lingo called Patois.”

“Why, I thought it was an English island,” exclaimed Tom.

“So ’tis,” the diver assured him. “But lots of the people don’t speak English. It’s been French and British by turn and it’s between two French islands--Guadeloupe and Martinique--and the country people and most of the town’s people are more French than British.”

The island was now in plain view and as the sun sank into the west, the great masses of clouds above the deep green mountains turned slowly to gold and then to rosy pink; the vast gorges and ravines took on shades of violet and deep purple; the sea appeared like a sheet of amethyst, and as the destroyer slowly lost headway and her anchor plunged overboard, a magnificent rainbow sprang as if by magic from mountain side to mountain side, spanning the valley with a multicolored bridge.

Even before the destroyer’s anchor had splashed into the sea and the rattle and roar of her chains echoed from the hills, she was surrounded by a flotilla of gayly painted small boats. Some were ordinary rowboats, but many were queer-looking little craft, like big canoes with projecting bows like the rams of old style warships and one and all were manned by pleasant-faced, brown-skinned natives who gabbled and chattered in a strange, utterly unintelligible jargon. But before the boys had more than a glimpse of the boats and their occupants, they were forced to scurry under cover, as from a clear sky rain poured down in torrents, blotting out the distant mountains and veiling the near-by quay and town with a white curtain.

“Golly!” exclaimed Tom. “It’s pouring cats and dogs and there wasn’t a cloud overhead.”

Rawlins laughed. “That’s Dominica all right!” he replied. “Rainiest spot in the world, I guess. My father used to say they measured the rainfall here by yards and not by inches.”

“But how can it rain when there are no clouds?” persisted Tom, to whom this phenomenon was most mystifying.

“I think I can explain that,” volunteered Commander Disbrow. “It’s the moisture laden air from the Atlantic blowing across these forest-covered mountains. The moisture is condensed and falls as rain before it has time to gather in a vapor and form clouds. I’ve seen the same thing in the Azores.”

But now the rain had ceased as abruptly as it had begun and presently the ship’s cutter was in the water. Five minutes later the boys stepped ashore at the little stone and concrete pier.

While Mr. Pauling, Mr. Henderson and Commander Disbrow turned up the hill towards Government House, the two boys and Rawlins strolled through the quaint little town and entered the big botanic station. Never had Tom and Frank been so delighted or so enthusiastic over new and strange sights as in Roseau, for it was utterly unlike anything they had ever seen or imagined. The chattering colored women in their long, trailing, stiffly starched, gaudy dresses with brilliant silk foulards or kerchiefs about their necks and their jaunty, rainbow-hued turbans gave a very foreign, out-of-the-world effect to the spot. The narrow cobbled streets, with the open ditches, filled with swiftly flowing water; the French names over the shops and stores; and the wooden houses with outjutting balconies forming shelters for great casks of lime juice, trays of cacao beans, and diminutive native ponies--all lent a most picturesque touch to the place. The boys even declared that the miserable huts with their walls made partly from discarded kerosene tins and rusty corrugated iron and which were oddly sandwiched in between the good buildings only added to the attractions of the little town.

But when they reached the gardens and strolled along the perfectly kept drives and walks between broad green lawns dotted with every imaginable tropic shrub, palm, and flower, and wandered through dark avenues of clove, nutmeg and cinnamon trees, with the air heavy with the mingled odors of orchids, jasmine and spices, they could not find words to express their appreciation.

“Gee, a fellow could wander here for a week and not see it all!” declared Tom.

“And say, wouldn’t it be just great to ride up that valley into the mountains?” cried Frank. “Golly, it looks wild and interesting.”

“It is,” Rawlins assured him. “Maybe you’ll have a chance to try it. You can go to the Mountain lake and back in a day and anyway you can climb up Morne Bruce here to-morrow morning and have a fine view of the valley.”

Reluctantly, the boys turned back and taking a different route through the town, reached the waiting boat. To the boys’ intense delight, although their elders chafed at the delay, Mr. Pauling told them that he planned to stay in Dominica to await expected news of the Devonshire’s arrival at Trinidad or Demerara and that he had no objection to their proposed ride up the valley as it would be impossible for the Devonshire to reach port within the next twenty-four hours.

As a result, the enthusiastic boys could scarcely wait to eat breakfast the next morning, but hurried ashore with Rawlins and found the ponies, which the diver had ordered through one of the native boatmen the night before, waiting for them.

Even their boyish imaginations had never prepared them for the beauties, the constant surprises, the strangeness and the interests of that ride. They passed for miles beside the tumbling, roaring river through endless lime orchards; they climbed steep grades that wound around hillsides glorious with masses of brilliant flowers; they rode under arches of giant bamboos rising fifty feet above their heads, and as they mounted higher the way led through forests of stupendous trees, enormous tree ferns, and tangled, cable-like lianas, where even at midday, it was like twilight. Often the narrow road wound around the verges of terrific precipices and, involuntarily, the boys shuddered and drew back as the sure-footed mountain ponies picked their way so close to the brink that stones, dislodged by their passage, went crashing down to the dark forest a thousand feet beneath. Sometimes too, they halted for brief rests and listened to the flute-like songs of the “mountain whistler” or watched humming birds flashing like living gems among the flowers of orchids or begonias.

Then at last they came out upon the topmost mountain ridge and as the heavy mist, which Rawlins told them was a cloud, drifted away, they looked upon a vast sea of forest-covered mountains with a glimmering little lake nestled among the verdure in a bowl-like crater at their feet. Here, above the clouds, they ate their lunch and, heedless of the drenching rain, returned down the mountains late in the afternoon. As they came out upon the waterfront, they saw smoke pouring from the funnels of the destroyer.

“Holy mackerel!” exclaimed Rawlins. “They must have heard something. They’ve got steam up.”

Scarcely had the three scrambled into the waiting cutter, when the little craft was speeding towards the destroyer and to Rawlins’ questions the petty officer in command replied that the Commander was only awaiting their arrival before sailing.

No sooner had the cutter left the dock than the roar of the winch engines and the incoming cable told of the anchor coming in, and scarcely were the diver and the two boys over the little ship’s side and the cutter hooked to the davit falls before the destroyer was forging ahead and making for the open sea.

“What’s up?” cried Rawlins as he gained the deck. “Get a message?”

“Yes, an hour ago,” replied Mr. Pauling. “Here it is.”

The diver and the two boys glanced eagerly over the slip, and read: “Devonshire and crew held according to request. May, Inspector Police. Port of Spain.”

“Hurrah!” cried the boys in unison. “They’re caught!”

“I’ll say they are!” exclaimed Rawlins. “Walked right into our trap!”

CHAPTER IV—MORE MYSTERIES

Of course, every one was highly elated at the successful outcome of the ruse which Rawlins had suggested and all felt that at last the long chase was over, that the leaders of the gang of “reds” were prisoners under lock and key at Trinidad, and that soon the destroyer would be homeward bound with her mission successfully accomplished. And no one was more pleased at the outcome than Robinson, the chief officer of the Devonshire. At the suggestion of the officials in Dominica, it had been decided to keep him and his men on the destroyer until definite news was received of his ship’s whereabouts when, as he had pointed out to Mr. Pauling and Commander Disbrow, he and his men could be put aboard the Devonshire and could again assume the duties which had been so tragically interrupted by the rascals from the submarine. Moreover, as the Administrator of Dominica had reminded Mr. Pauling, the presence of Robinson and his men would be needed at whatever port the Devonshire was held, in order to identify the pirates and to testify to the facts.

And now, knowing that he would soon be back on his own ship and would have an opportunity of telling his story to the British authorities and would have the satisfaction of seeing the murderers of Captain Masters and the radio operator receive their just punishment, Robinson and his men were, if possible, more elated than Mr. Pauling and his party.

“It means hangin’ for the bally blighters!” he declared. “Piracy ’twas--no less--and though I’ve never been to a hangin’ yet, it would do me good to go to theirs--when I think of Captain Masters and poor ‘Sparks’ shot down in cold blood.”

“Yes, they richly deserve it,” agreed Mr. Pauling. “But I’m afraid punishment for this crime will rob us of the chance to punish them for the other crimes they have committed. However, it makes little difference what government deals with them, I suppose.”

“Yes, you may be sure the British are not going to give them up,” declared Mr. Henderson. “We may think our English cousins slow in some things, but British laws and British justice are inexorable as well as swift and these rascals will curse the day they ran their stolen ship into a British port. Better for them had they given themselves up to us.”

“I suppose we’d better send a message to Trinidad saying we’re coming and have the Devonshire’s crew and chief officer aboard,” said Mr. Pauling. “I should have done it before. No need of cipher now. Just see Bancroft, Rawlins, and give him this message.”

Presently the diver returned, a frown on his face. “He can’t send it, Mr. Pauling,” he announced. “Something’s wrong with his instruments. He says they went wrong just after we got the message this morning and he can’t locate the trouble. Just as soon as he gets the things fixed, he’ll shoot it off.”

“Too bad,” exclaimed Mr. Pauling, “but there’s really no hurry. Lucky it didn’t happen when we had really important matters to send--for example, when we notified the officials of the Devonshire’s seizure.”

“And if he doesn’t get his set fixed, we can send with ours, when we get nearer,” said Tom.

“To be sure!” assented his father. “I’d almost forgotten that--it’s been so long since you boys were called upon.”

Interested as they were in everything pertaining to radio, the two boys hurried to the radio room and found Bancroft busy at his instruments and thoroughly exasperated.

“It’s just got my goat!” he exclaimed, as he glanced up at the boys’ arrival. “I never ran up against anything like it. I’ve been over the antenna and the insulation, and I’ve worked back to the inductance and the condensers. Everything seems ship-shape and yet the whole blamed thing seems dead. Current’s all right, I’ve tried new tubes, and the wave meter and ammeter tests are O. K. and yet I can’t get a blessed reply.”

“Well, that doesn’t prove you’re not sending,” declared Tom. “How do you know the trouble isn’t in the station you’re trying to get? Maybe your messages are going out all right and they get them but can’t send back.”

“Oh, I’m not such a boob as not to think of that!” retorted Bancroft. “I’ve tried four different stations and not a reply from any. And the radio compass is in the same fix. It’s downright uncanny, I tell you. Look here! The filament oscillates and the ammeter registers and yet I’ll bet there isn’t a wave going out. It’s just as if the thing were short circuited somewhere, but I can swear it’s not. I’ve even hooked up a whole new set.”

“Say, I’ve an idea to test it and be sure you’re not sending,” cried Tom. “I’ll go over to the radio-compass and listen and you send and see if I hear anything. Then I’ll send and see if you can hear. If there’s even a trace of waves, we ought to get them at a few yards away.”

“That’s a great scheme,” agreed Bancroft enthusiastically. “And say, I wonder if your sets are all right.”

“We’ll try them too, after we do this,” said Tom as he left the room.

But Tom’s scheme was a dismal failure. Although the set at the radio compass seemed in perfect working order, he could detect no sign of a message from Bancroft’s instruments a few yards away and when: he returned to the wireless room, Bancroft reported! that he had heard nothing.

“Well, that does beat the Dutch,” declared Tom, “Now I’m going to test our sets. Perhaps everything’s hoodooed. You go to the radio compass, Frank, and Mr. Bancroft can stay here and I’ll go to our sets and we’ll try to get some sound or to send. If they’re all dead, it must be some atmospheric trouble. Perhaps the air’s full of electricity or something.”

“Whew!” exclaimed Bancroft, “That gives me an idea! Perhaps it’s due to that volcano over at Martinique--Mt. Pelee you know, the one that destroyed St. Pierre. It’s still active and it’s only a few miles from Dominica. If I could only get some dope from the station at Fort de France I could find out.”

“I don’t know,” replied Tom. “I read somewhere that active volcanoes did all sorts of queer things to ships’ compasses and if they affect magnets, I don’t see why they shouldn’t affect radio instruments. But if that’s it, then it’s mighty funny you got the message this morning.”

“But I didn’t!” exclaimed Bancroft. “I haven’t received any message since day before yesterday. That message your father got was a cable.”

“Gosh!” ejaculated Tom. “I thought all along it was a radio. I never asked, but just took it for granted. Then you don’t know how long these sets have been out of order?”

“Well, I know they were all right when we sent those messages off after we picked up the Devonshire’s boat,” replied Bancroft.

“Then perhaps it’s the volcano,” said Tom. “If it is, the sets will work all right after we get farther away.”

“And we’ve forgotten something else,” put in Frank. “How can we tell whether it’s the sending or receiving sets that have gone bad? Maybe they all send and won’t receive or all receive and won’t send.”

“Why, of course that’s so,” assented Tom. “If it’s the same trouble with all--the volcano or atmosphere or anything, then we may all be sending but can’t receive. But you’re wrong, in a way, because we know it must be in the receiving end anyway, or we’d hear some messages from ships or shore even if they didn’t get ours. So if we’re not sending, the things have gone wrong both ways. Well, I’m going to ours now, so listen.”

It was now night, a dark, inky black night such as only occurs in the tropics, with the darkness seeming to shut one in by a curtain and Tom had actually to feel his way along the decks. The sea was fairly smooth, and the destroyer, steadied by her swift rush through the water, was making easy weather of it, and by the vibration of her hull Tom knew that she was being driven at the greatest speed possible in her still crippled condition. The decks seemed deserted, although Tom knew that, hidden from view in the blackness, the watch was being kept and once he glimpsed a dim, white, ghostly figure as it passed through the rays of a running light forward and he heard faint voices from the direction of the chart room and bridge. But somehow he had a peculiar feeling of mystery or danger afoot and glanced nervously about. Then, realizing how foolish he was, he shook off the childish fears of the dark and reaching the stairs descended towards the little room where he and Frank had installed their radio outfits.

The steel-walled, narrow alleyway was dimly lighted by screened electric bulbs and reaching the door to the room, Tom turned the knob, swung it open, and stepped into the black interior. With groping fingers he reached for the switch beside the door and pressed the button. At his touch the place was flooded with brilliant light and dazed by the sudden glare Tom involuntarily turned his face and blinked. The next instant the steel ceiling seemed to crash down upon his head, his knees sagged limply, the light danced and spun about and he felt himself sinking into a bottomless black pit.

Slowly consciousness came back to him. First, as a dull, throbbing ache, then as a stabbing pain in his head and with the pain came the dim memory of the blinding light, the blow and oblivion. What had happened? What had fallen from above to strike him? Why was it so dark? Why did he feel suffocating? Had the lights gone out? Was he still pinned under the object which had hit him?

Perhaps, he thought, there had been an accident, a collision. Perhaps, even now, the destroyer was sinking. He strove to turn his head, to rise, and then, for the first time, he suddenly realized that his head was enveloped in the heavy choking folds of a blanket, that his arms were pinioned behind his back and with the discovery came the terrifying knowledge that he had been struck by some one; stunned, gagged, and bound by some enemy.

But, by whom? Who upon the destroyer could have done this? Who had been hiding in the room and for what reason?

Choking for breath, still dazed from the blow on his head, frightened and sick, feeling as if every breath under the smothering cloth must be his last, Tom nevertheless thought of the others. The vessel and his friends must be in danger; there must be mutiny afoot, and he groaned to think that he could not warn the others; could not even cry out. Then, suddenly he forgot all, forgot his aching dizzy head, his gasping, choking lungs, his terror and his plight, for through the folds of the blanket the sounds of a human voice came dimly to him. And, as Tom’s straining ears caught the words, he could scarcely believe he was not in a delirium. Terror froze the blood in his veins.

“Everything correct,” came faintly through the cloth. “We’ll fix the gear so she’ll go on the rocks in the Bocas. Yes, all out of it but this and I’ll fix this in a minute more. Oh, yes. Pretty near caught. Fool boy bobbed up unexpectedly. Knocked him out. Oh, no, toss him overboard presently. No, no trace.”

Then silence--and Tom, knowing his end was near, that in a few short moments he would be cast, bound, gagged and helpless into the black water, prayed for unconsciousness, prayed for oblivion that would end his sufferings. But the very terror of his fate kept his mind active and his senses alive, while each short, gasping breath he drew sent surges of awful, crashing pain through his temples and he felt as though his eyes were bulging from the sockets.

Then he felt himself roughly seized and being carried away bodily. He knew that in another instant he would find himself falling, would feel the cold waters close over him. Summoning all his fast ebbing strength, he uttered a piercing scream and once more lost consciousness.

Muffled by the blanket about his head, Tom’s last despairing cry could not have been heard ten feet away; but it was enough. Less than ten feet off, Sam the Bahaman was at that instant approaching the room, passing through the alleyway. At the boy’s smothered cry, he leaped to the door, flung it open and with a savage yell sprang at the figure about to throw the apparently lifeless boy through the open gun port.

So swift and silent had been Sam’s response to Tom’s cry that the negro’s yell was the first warning Tom’s captor had of the Bahaman’s approach. Startled, taken utterly by surprise, he dropped the boy’s body, whipped out a revolver and whirled about. But Sam, with head lowered, had hurled himself like a catapult across the room. Before the other could even aim his weapon, the negro’s head struck him squarely in the stomach with the force of a battering ram. With a gasping, awful gurgle the man doubled up and shot through the open gun port into the sea. Sam, carried forward by his own momentum, grasped the gun carriage and saved himself in the nick of time from plunging into the water after the writhing body of his victim.

The Bahaman gave one glance through the open barbette at the racing, black, foam-flecked waves and then, with a grin of satisfaction, he sprang to Tom’s side, whipped off the blanket, and tore loose the bonds about his wrists. Lifting the unconscious boy in his powerful black arms, he raced with him to the deck and to the room where Tom’s father and the others were chatting, all oblivious of the tragedy which had taken place beneath their feet.

To their frenzied questions as they worked feverishly over Tom, Sam could give but very vague and unsatisfactory replies. “Ah jus’ cotch tha’ soun’ of tha’ young gen’man’s cry, Chief,” he told Mr. Pauling. “An’ Ah knowed tha’ mus’ be trouble for he an’ burs’ into the room. An Ah seed tha’ Englishman jus’ mekkin’ fo’ to heave he out the gun po’t, Chief.”

“Englishman!” cried Mr. Pauling. “What Englishman?”

“Tha’ English sailor man, Chief,” replied Sam.

“You don’t mean Robinson!” exclaimed Mr. Pauling. “Where is he? What happened?”

“Yaas, Chief, tha’ officer we picked up in tha’ boat, Chief. He’s finish, Chief. Ah don’ rightly know where he gone, but Ah’ ’spec tha’ sharks got he.”

“Suffering cats!” cried out Rawlins. “Did you knock him overboard?”

Sam grinned. “Yaas, Sir,” he replied. “Leastwise, when Ah seed he mekkin’ to heave the young gen’man out, Ah jus’ butted he afore he could mek to shoot an Ah ’spec Ah butted he pretty hard, fo’ he jus’ mek one good grunt an’ scooned out o’ tha’ po’t like Davy Jones was callin’ he.”

“You old black rascal!” cried Rawlins, slapping Sam on the back. “I’ll say you butted him good--and I’ll bet he ‘scooned.’ Why, by glory, I’d rather be kicked by a mule than butted by that kinky head of yours.”

“Jove, but this is a mystery!” exclaimed Mr. Henderson. “The fellow must have gone crazy suddenly. Why on earth should he wish to injure Tom?”

“Perhaps Tom can tell us, when he comes to,” suggested Commander Disbrow. “Ah, he’s all right, he’ll be out of his faint in a moment.”

Presently Tom’s eyes opened and he looked about, a wild, uncomprehending expression on his face. Then, realizing that he really was among his friends, that his father was bending over him and that he had not been thrown into the sea, he smiled and closing his eyes, took a long deep breath.

When again he looked up, he was fully conscious and to his father’s anxious queries declared he felt all right except weak and that his head ached. Then, for the first time, the others discovered the great bruised lump upon his head and as it was being bandaged Tom told his amazing story.

“The scoundrel!” cried Mr. Pauling. “I can’t understand it. Whom was he talking to in the room?”

“In the room!” fairly shouted Rawlins. “Don’t you see it all, Mr. Pauling? He was talking to those blamed ‘reds.’ The whole thing’s a frame up. They weren’t shipwrecked at all. The Devonshire never was held up. It was all a trick and I said I had a hunch it was at the time. They just got aboard us to give them a chance to wreck the destroyer and get away. He put the radio sets out of commission and left the boys’ set ’til the last so he could call to his friends.”

Before Rawlins had uttered a dozen words, the Commander had slipped from the room and before the diver had ended he had given low-toned orders and commands.

“By Jove, I guess you’re right!” exclaimed Mr. Pauling. “But still, we got that cable from Trinidad this morning. The Devonshire must be there.”

Rawlins snorted. “Cable nothing!” he replied. “That was a fake--sent by the same bunch to head us for Trinidad. Didn’t Tom hear him say they’d fix our gear to put us on the rocks in the Bocas? Why, by gravy, they may be hanging around within sight of us now! There never was a Devonshire. They just dropped off from the sub in our course and pretended to be adrift. I’ll bet the old sub wasn’t fifty yards away when we took ’em aboard.”

“And we thought they’d fallen into our trap!” ejaculated Mr. Henderson. “And we were the ones who were caught.”

“A miss is as good as a mile,” Rawlins reminded him. “And we’re not caught yet. We’ll fool ’em still and land ’em if I have to follow them to Kingdom Come. Say, we’d better get the rest of that bunch rounded up before they do anything or get wise to Robinson being bumped off.”

“They’re attended to,” announced Commander Disbrow, as he reentered the room. “Every mother’s son of them is safe in double irons.”

“Bully for you!” cried Rawlins. “Now let’s put our heads together and see how we’ll nab the rest of the bunch.”

“There we’re up against it,” declared Mr. Pauling. “If we could make any of the prisoners confess, we might find out their plans, although I doubt if they know them. And we haven’t the least idea as to where the submarine is. I think it’s about hopeless.”

“I’ll be shot if ’tis,” declared the diver. “That fake British rascal was going to get off with a whole skin with his gang somewhere. You can bet he wouldn’t risk his dirty neck when we went on the rocks. All we’ve got to do is pretend to fall in with their plans, keep on for Trinidad, and watch developments. There was some plan to get this bunch off before we got there and we’re boobs if we can’t get on to it.”

“Yes, no doubt you’re right,” agreed Mr. Pauling. “But still I’m doubtful of success. The criminal always has the advantage in a case of this sort for he knows his own plans and makes them while knowing more or less of his pursuers’ plans and movements, whereas the authorities know nothing of his and must go largely by guess work. Possibly the boys might send some message--asking for further orders or pretending the exact plans had not gone through--and so get information.”

“No, that would give us away at once,” declared Rawlins. “They knew the radio instruments were all disabled and that Robinson, or whatever his real name was, intended to fix the boys’ set as soon as he was through talking, and now if we start butting in on radio again, they’ll shy off.”

“But what did he mean about fixing the gear and the Bocas?” asked Tom.

“The Bocas are the narrow channels leading into the Gulf of Paria from the Caribbean,” explained the Commander. “The tide runs swiftly and there are dangerous rocky shores on either side. If a ship’s steering gear or engines go wrong there, she’ll pile on the rocks in a moment. I expect the rascals planned to monkey with the steering gear--though how I can’t imagine. I’ve a gang of machinists and engineers going over every part of the ship now. No knowing but they may have done something already.”

“And to think we pitied them and thought them shipwrecked sailors!” exclaimed Frank.

“Yes, and I was fool enough to give away some of our plans,” lamented Mr. Pauling. “No doubt that confounded faker told them all to his friends on the sub.”