But it was a long time coming, measured by the impatience of the listener. The operator on the Herculanea was silent for ten minutes or more, while Walter sat at his table, eager to receive one more message before turning in.
“Better give it up,” advised Tony, “He’s going to bed.”
“I won’t believe it till I have to,” replied the other. “No, you’re wrong,” he added suddenly. “Here he is.”
Walter was now all eagerness again. But soon a marked change came over his face. So startling was the change that Tony sprang forward to catch his friend, believing him to be ill. The next instant he saw his mistake.
Pale and trembling, Walter gripped the receivers with both hands, while he listened with every nerve at high tension. He uttered one or two gasps; then he snatched up his pencil and wrote several figures on the tab. A moment later he was shouting orders to his companion.
“Tony, Tony!” he cried. “Run an’ wake up Det quick. Tell him to come here right away. The Herculanea—S. O. S.—I got the message. She’s hit something—wrecked—sinking—mother—Guy!”
Dazed, bewildered, Tony rushed out of the cabin, onto the wharf and up the path toward the old sailor’s house, while Walter, with ghost-like face and rigid muscles sat listening to the appeals of distress as they came from the operator of the doomed liner.
CHAPTER XIV
The Voice of the Fog Pirate
Affairs were bad enough on board the Herculanea, but not quite so bad as the cry of the terror-stricken passenger would seem to indicate. Although she was steadily sinking lower and lower, the steamer remained afloat half an hour after the first boiler explosion. After a hundred or more had leaped into the sea, following the example of the first terrified wretch, the panic subsided, and the saner ones busied themselves at devising means of self-preservation. But it was plainly a question of only a short time when she would tip on end and plunge downward, so that all worked with the greatest of haste.
Guy and his two friends kept together through the fearful excitement. A dozen rafts, large enough and well enough buoyed to float with a burden of from twenty-five to fifty persons each, were being launched with greater energy than skill, and conditions now looked hopeful for those who had leaped into the sea with life jackets, as well as for the many who still remained on board.