Meantime, the boys went on with recitations, wrote descriptions of the different parts of the island they had seen, took excursions on the bay and through the woods, and got up little entertainments to pass away the evenings so that altogether they were kept quite busy, and, as a consequence, were very well content with their situation, although it was not just what they had expected when they left home.
The day after sending out the personal message to Mr. Smith the captain of the yacht picked up a message which, although not addressed to him, was the first he had been able to pick up, and was of some interest on that account if on no other.
The message was to some government official in Florida, and related to a certain smuggler who had been defrauding the government by sending shipments of tobacco without paying the duty thereon.
"Are on track of Rollins and smuggler crew. Sighted them near Isle of Pines. Will keep on watch there and in Caribbean."
Such was the message and the captain, although not especially interested in Rollins, whoever he might be, was glad to get any information from the outside world which seemed so far away, although almost at their very doors.
He sent a wireless to the sender of the message, and asked if information of their situation could be sent to the government, and help despatched to them, hoping by this means to receive some recognition at last.
"If I get other folks' messages some one will probably get mine," said the captain, "and by communicating with these people I may finally get attention. Rollins? Don't remember to have heard of him. There's probably a gang of them working between our border, Cuba and the South American ports. Whistling cyclones! they might be working among some of these little islands. A man who would defraud his government is no better than a pirate and pirates used to hang around these waters a lot. It isn't such an unlikely thing that these new pirates should do it now."
The next day quite unexpectedly the captain got a call and at once sent for the doctor and said:
"I've had word at last. From our owners. From Mr. Smith himself. He has just heard from us, and is going to send out a vessel to get us away from here. It seems that one of our smaller vessels, a steamer, has been captured by some smugglers working around Cuba, Porto Rico and the neighborhood, who are using it in their trade. Some of the men got away, and took the news to Havana. The name of the vessel is a good deal like our own, and Smith thought that we had been taken at first, and began a lot of investigating. Then he got our messages, which had been held up by some one else, thinking they were fakes, or some boys' play. These young wireless operators make a lot of trouble now and then."
"Well, as long as we know that help is being sent to us we can feel relieved," said the doctor. "That is something, at any rate, but——"