“I know of her. She bears no good reputation. Once she was chartered to the Haytian government and was used as a war ship; then she was in the smuggling trade along the coast. The last I heard of her she was laid up in the marine Basin at Ulmer Park. Her history has been one of troubles. Do you feel strong enough to go back to your key?”
“Yes, sir,” exclaimed Jack eagerly. “Young Smalley, my assistant, is too seasick to work to-night. I’ll take the trick right through.”
“Good for you, my boy. I’ll see that you are no sufferer by it. By the way, did the Endymion have any message? Was she in trouble?”
“No, sir, but they wished to give some sort of a radio to a Mr. James Jarrold, one of the first-class passengers.”
The captain tapped his foot musingly on the polished wood floor of his cabin.
“Odd,” he mused, “I wonder what possible communication they could have to make to him. Is Jarrold a heavy-set man with a blue, square jaw and bristly, black hair?”
“Yes, sir, that is the man to the dot.”
“I have noticed him at dinner. He sits at the first officer’s table. Back in my head I’ve got a sort of indefinable idea that I’ve seen him somewhere before, but just where I cannot, for the life of me, call to mind just now.”
“It is too bad that the aërials went out of commission just as that other operator was starting to give the message.”
“It was, indeed, but you must try now to pick up this Endymion again. I’m curious to know more of her and of our mysterious passenger.”