It would be necessary to squander money and time on remodeling the whole system of defense unless the Endymion could be found. That was the burden of the song the naval wireless men were flinging backward and forward with flaming keys that crackled and flared angrily.
“Find the Endymion! If she is on the Seven Seas, find her.”
Over those who knew the secret agony that the army officer was suffering hung a heavy gloom, as the Tropic Queen ploughed her way seaward, bound for Santa Marta on the coast of Colombia. Colonel Minturn kept to his room, nursing his anxiety.
From time to time the naval wireless boomed messages in the secret code into Jack’s ears and they were promptly transmitted below. But the colonel sent out no replies. All that he could say had been said in that first radiogram that had set official Washington a-buzz.
And in the meantime, on board the Endymion, what was happening? Speeding as if from a deadly plague, she was driven at top speed across the Caribbean. Jarrold, his face gray and lined, and almost as anxious-looking as the visage of Colonel Minturn, paced the deck and the bridge, calling always for speed and more speed. His niece, pale-faced and nerve-racked, watched him anxiously.
Cummings, catching the naval messages that volleyed through the air, told of the hunt that was up; of the naval prows ploughing the tropic seas in a systematic hunt for the grayhound-like yacht that was fleeing like a criminal across the sea wastes.
Jarrold, under the strain, grew dangerous to approach. He kept shouting and signaling for speed and ever more speed. The engineer appealed to him in vain. It was dangerous. The boilers could carry no more steam. Already the ship was a-quiver with their imprisoned power.
But Jarrold had only one reply:
“More speed, I say, more speed!”
On the evening of the second day of this mad race, a murmur began to run through the ship: A rumor that Jarrold was a criminal. That he was fleeing from justice. That he would blow the ship up with every soul on board rather than be captured.