“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.”