Thoroughly alarmed Lathrop sent out the navy call and after a short time got into communication with the Tarantula.
Lieutenant Selby himself responded, after the operator had told him of Lathrop’s grave news. For an hour he and Lathrop talked across space and it was finally agreed that the Tarantula was to send a detachment of men to the island with a machine-gun and other provisions and that if the boys did not shortly reappear a relief expedition would be started into the interior after them.
“What is your latitude and longitude?” spelled out the Tarantula’s wireless, when the arrangements had been completed. At Lathrop’s request Billy hurried into the hut and fetched out Frank’s log-book in which, in his neat writing, the position of the island was jotted down:
“Latitude 25° 29’ 30" N,” he read out, “Longitude 80. 56. 45. W.”
As the young reporter read off Frank’s entries Lathrop rattled them out on the wireless and when they had been repeated through the air, to make certain they were correct, he cut out the instrument.
“It’s queer that if Frank’s information was correct that there is no sign of the submarine at the mouth of Jew-Fish River,” remarked Lathrop.
Billy agreed with him.
“How far is the river mouth from here?” he asked. Lathrop fetched the map and weighting down the corners with stones till it lay flat on the ground, both boys studied it intently. Lathrop announced, after a few minutes’ figuring with dividers and compass, that the river—at the mouth of which the submarine of the Far Eastern power was supposed to be,—was not more than ten miles from the island on which they were then encamped.
“If only the boys were here we could make it in the canoes in a short time,” sighed Billy, “but what are we to do? we don’t know a thing about navigation and we could never find it without Frank.”
“That’s so,” agreed Lathrop. “Oh,” he burst out suddenly, “I wish we’d never seen the Everglades. If only we could get safe on board the Tarantula I believe I’d stay there till she sailed for home.”