“Like a book. We’ll be on your trail inside of half an hour.”
“It’s all right!” shouted Tom, as he regained the launch. “Make straight for the steamer, now, Bill.”
“No time to lose either,” was the snappy response.
The fresh start gave Bill his bearings more clearly than ever.
“I can’t miss it,” he declared. “Speed her up, Tom.”
The young wireless operator gazed anxiously and eagerly ahead as they dashed forward. No lights yet showed, but he knew that the shore line described a circular sweep just beyond Brookville. They might not be far enough out at sea yet to give them a clear view of the waters. His anxiety, however, grew to dismal forebodings as ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed by, and the same blank unbroken blackness loomed ahead.
Suddenly Tom, who had been watching the motor, called out to his companion:
“Say, Bill, you’d better come back here a minute.”
“What for? I can’t leave the wheel, unless it’s something important.”
“Well, it’s important all right. I don’t like the way this machinery is acting. It doesn’t seem to be sparking right, if I’m any judge.”