“Come aboard. We’ll stop for you.”
It requires something of a sensation to stop a big liner in mid-ocean.
CHAPTER XXIII
Taking the “Wireless” Out of “Wireless Shoes”
In ten minutes the Jetta was alongside the Atlantic liner, Manhattan, and an officer descended into the yacht to make an inspection. A glance satisfied him, and he gave orders for receiving the rescued castaways on board the steamer.
The captain invited the crew of the yacht also to accept passage to New York, promising to take the Jetta in tow. This plan was satisfactory to Walter and his two companions and was adopted. The dead bodies on the yacht were then taken aboard and treated with embalming preservatives.
The Manhattan was due at New York on the second day following. The rescued castaways were offered every convenience that ingenuity and generosity could devise. The injured and the ill were given medical attention, while the others were reinvigorated with hot baths and fresh clothing, a “swell feed,” according to Glennon and “the most comfortable staterooms they ever slept in.”
Walter, Tony, and Det, not being in particular need of revival and refreshment, were kept busy until late in the night reciting their accounts of the rescue. And it was not long before they were commonly pronounced heroes of the first water by the passengers. Particularly was this honor extended to Walter, for Det and Tony insisted that he be given all the credit due him.
“If that boy doesn’t get a Carnegie medal, we ought to blow the whole board of trustees up with T N T,” declared one large, red-faced, ungentle gentleman, swelling as if to burst with indignation at the failure of the hero board to appear magically on the spot and make its award before anybody else thought about it.
Next morning those of the rescued iceberg Crusoes who were able to leave their rooms became objects of further attention, and new features of the disaster were brought out in reply to more questions. It was not long, too, before special interest was directed to Guy, for if he and his mother had not been on the Herculanea, Walter and Tony and Det would not have made their dash to the rescue, and all these castaways would have perished.
Second only to the “wireless twins” as characters of interest in this midocean drama were the two Eskimos. Tarmik and Emah were dazed with the wonder of their new surroundings. They had never dreamed of such richness, such magnificence of nautical architecture and equipment. It was like being transported from a desert to paradise. Professor Anderson, who had recovered from his injuries, was pressed into service as an interpreter, and the two fur-clad Greenlanders were kept busy answering questions until they exhibited signs of weariness.