“In the beginning the message surely says: ‘Colodia! Help! Get!——No! That should not be ‘getmans’ that ‘seized Redbird’. No, no! There is the same combination in the lower message. It is ‘ger’ down there, not ‘get’,” muttered Whistler, vastly interested now.
With pencil and paper he set to work. In five minutes he offered Belding the following paragraph as a translation in full of the first message:
“Colodia! Help! Germans seized Redbird for Bahia. Help!—L. Belding.”
“Oh, Whistler, you’ve got it! And it is as we have feared. Those papers that Emil Eberhardt stole from me back in England have played the dickens with the Redbird and the folks. I am sure it is Lil trying to call me—the splendid kid that she is!”
“Hold on! Hold on!” Whistler said, but encouragingly. “Let’s get the other message, too.”
He set to work on that; but the first of it baffled him. He could only begin to make it out where the word “Redbird” occurred. From that place on, it was not so difficult: “Redbird painted out—mutiny—Germans seized ship—Help.” This second message was not signed with Lilian Belding’s name or her initials, but George knew the sending to have been the same as that of the first call for help.
“But, Phil!” gasped the New York youth, “we don’t know a living thing about where the Redbird is, or what is happening to our folks.”
“You’d think she would have tried to tell their situation in the message,” rejoined Whistler slowly.
“If she knew. She’s a girl, and wouldn’t be likely to interest herself much in navigation.”
“Tut, tut, my boy! Everybody at sea takes an interest in the course of the ship and her speed. Of course they do. Wait! Here is the abbreviation for longitude right here—‘long.’ Two blanks for the figures you did not catch, George, my boy!”