A CONFESSION
For an hour Curlie Carson had been seated in the radiophone cabin of the Kittlewake. During that time his delicately adjusted amplifier and his wonderful ears had enabled him to pick up many weird and unusual messages. Listening in at sea before a great storm is like wandering on the beach after that same storm; you never can tell what you may pick up. But though fragments of many messages had come to him, not one of any importance to the Kittlewake had reached his ears. If during that time any message from the Stormy Petrel had been sent out, it had been lost in the crash and snap of static which now kept up a constant din in his ears.
Again doubt assailed him. He had no positive knowledge that the boys in the plane had gone in search of that mysterious island of the old chart. They might, for all he knew, be at this moment enjoying a rich feast on some island off the coast of America.
"Cuba, for instance," he told himself. "Not at all impossible. Short trip for such a seaplane."
"And here," he grumbled angrily to himself, "here I am risking my own life and the life of my companions and crew, inviting death to all these, and this on a mere conjecture. Guess I'm a fool."
The gale was rising every moment. Even as he spoke the prow of the boat reared in air, to come down with such an impact as made one believe she had stepped on something solid.
Just when Curlie's patience with himself and all the rest of the world was exhausted, Joe Marion opened the door. The wind, boosting him across the threshold, slammed the door after him.
"Whew!" he sputtered. "Going to be rotten. Tell you what, I don't like it. Dangerous, I'd say!"
"Nothing's dangerous," smiled Curlie, greatly pleased to see that someone at least was more disturbed than himself. "Nothing's really dangerous since the invention of the radiophone. Ocean, desert, Arctic wilderness; it's all the same. Sick, lost, shipwrecked? All you've got to do is keep your head clear and your radiophone dry and tuned up. It'll find you a way out."
"Yes, but," hesitated Joe, "how the deuce you going to pack a radiophone outfit, all those coils, batteries and boxes, when you're shipwrecked? How you going to keep 'em dry with the rain pelting you from above and the salt water beating at you from below? Lot of sense to that! Huh!" he grunted contemptuously. "That for your radiophone!" He snapped his finger. "And that for your old sloppy ocean! Give me a square yard of good old terra firma and I'll get along without all your modern inventions."
"It can be done, though," said Curlie thoughtfully.
"Radiophone kept dry after a wreck at sea."
"How?"
Curlie did not answer the question. Instead, he snapped the receiver from his head and handed it to Joe.
"Take this and listen in." He rose stiffly. "This business is getting on my nerves. I've got to get out for a breath of splendid fresh sea breeze."
"Nerves?" said Joe incredulously. "You got nerves?"
"Sometimes. Just now I have."
On the deck Curlie experienced difficulty in walking. As he worked his way forward he found that one moment his legs were far too long and his foot came down with a suddenness that set his teeth chattering; the next moment his legs had grown suddenly short. It was like stepping down stairs in the dark and taking two steps at a time when you expected to take but one.
"Never saw such a rumpus on the sea," he grumbled. "Going to be worse," he told himself as a chain of lightning, leaping across the sky, illumined the bank of black clouds that lay before them. "Going to be lots worse."
Poking his head into the wheel-house, he bellowed above the storm: "How's she go?"
"Seen worse'n 'er," the skipper shouted back.
"Ought to be at the spot we started for in half an hour—that island on the old chart."
"Never was no island," the skipper roared.
"Maybe not."
"Supposin' we get there, what then?"
"Don't know yet."
The skipper stared at Curlie for a full moment as if attempting to determine whether he were insane, then turned in silence to his wheel.
The wind blew the door shut and Curlie resumed his long-legged, short-legged march.
He had done three turns around the deck when his eyes caught a small figure crumpled up on the pile of ropes forward.
"Hello," he cried, "you out here?"
Gladys did not answer at once. She was straining her eyes as if to see some object which might be hovering above the jagged, sea-swept skyline.
"No," said Curlie, as if in answer to a question, "you couldn't see the plane. You couldn't see it fifty fathoms away and then it would flash by you like a carrier pigeon. No use if you did see it. Couldn't do anything. But there's one chance in a million of their coming into our line of vision, so it's no use watching. Only chance is a radiophone message giving their location."
"But I—I want to. I—I ought to do something." For the first time he noticed how white and drawn her face was.
"All right," he said in a quiet voice, "you just sit where you are and I'll sit here beside you and you tell me one or two things. That will help."
"Tell—tell what?"
"Tell me this: Did your brother have the original of that old map?"
"Yes," her tone was already quieting down, "yes, he did, or Alfred Brightwood did. His father is very rich and he has a hobby of collecting very old editions of books. He pays terrible prices for them. He bought an old, old copy of 'Marco Polo's Travels'; paid fifteen thousand dollars for it. And inside its cover Alfred found that old map with the curious writing on the back of it.
"He thought right away that it might hide some great secret, so he had it photographed and sent the photo to Vincent. Vincent got a great scholar to read the writing for him. He never told me what the writing was; said that no one but he and Alfred should know; that it was a great secret and that girls couldn't keep secrets, so I was not to know.
"But they can keep secrets!" she exploded, breaking off from her narrative. "They do keep secrets—more secrets than boys do. Wonderful and terrible secrets sometimes!"
"All right," smiled Curlie, "I agree with you, absolutely, but what did they do then?"
"Well," the girl pressed her temples as if to drive the thoughts of the present from her. "They—why then Alfred called Vincent by radiophone on 600. Vincent was terribly afraid to answer on 600, but he did. And then, because he thought the discovery of the map was so awfully important, he rigged up a radiophone on his auto and I—I"—she buried her face in her hands—"I helped him. I was with him in the car; drove while he sent the messages, all but that last night, when the car was wrecked.
"I—I know I shouldn't have done it. I knew all the time it was wrong, but Alfred was stubborn and wouldn't talk on anything but 600—said he had as much right on 600 as anyone else—so we did it."
"And then the car was wrecked?" suggested Curlie. He felt a trifle mean about making the girl tell, but he knew she would be more comfortable once she got it out of her system. People are that way.
"Yes," she said, "someone shot his tire and wrecked his machine. I found the car, first thing in the morning, and when I saw Vincent wasn't there I got two big packing baskets that we once used in the Rockies and put them on my horse. Then I went back and got all that radio stuff and took it home and hid it. Do you think I did wrong?" The eyes she turned to his were appealing ones.
"Maybe you did," said Curlie huskily, "but that doesn't matter now; you're paying for it all right—going to pay for it in full before this voyage is over. The thing you must try to think of now is the present, the little round present that is right here now. And you must try to be brave."
"And—and"—she said in a faltering voice—"do you think Vincent is paying for what he did?"
"I shouldn't be surprised."
"Then you won't have to arrest him if he's already punished?" The appealing eyes were again upon him.
At that moment Curlie did a strange thing, so strange that the words sounded preposterous to his own ears:
"No," he said slowly, "I won't, unless—unless he asks me to."
"Oh!" she breathed, "thank you." She placed her icy-cold hand on his for a second.
"You're freezing!" he exclaimed suddenly. "You'll be making yourself sick. You must get inside!"
"I'll go to the lounging cabin in mid-deck. The forecastle is so—so lonesome," she stammered. "If you need me, you'll find me there."
Feeling her way along the rail, she disappeared into the darkness.
At almost the same moment there came the bellowing sound of a voice that could be heard above the roar of the storm:
"Curlie! Curlie! Come here! Something coming in. Can't make it out!"
It was Joe Marion. Stumbling aft, now banging his feet down hard and now treading on empty air, Curlie made his way to the radiophone cabin.