[CHAPTER XV—SECRET SIGNALS AT DAWN]
The next morning both Jack and Sam were on the qui vive for a sight of the mysterious steamer of the night. But not even a smudge on the horizon gave indication of what had become of her. When Jack went down to breakfast, he met First Officer Metcalf and spoke to him of the strange signals.
“Yes; Muller, the third officer, who had the bridge last night, reported them to me this morning,” was the reply. “He jotted them down as they were flashed, but we can’t make head nor tail of them.”
“Nor can I,” confessed Jack. “It was a code message of some sort.”
“Some would-be funny chump having a joke at our expense, I reckon,” was the way that Mr. Metcalf, who, of course, knew nothing of the suspected machinations of Jarrold, dismissed the subject.
A lingering suspicion was in Jack’s mind that, by some queer chance, the message might have been for Colonel Minturn, so after the morning meal he drew him aside. But when shown the message, Colonel Minturn declared that, although the government used several codes, the one in question was not one of them.
“Then it was for Jarrold,” declared Jack positively, for, knowing what he did, he could not share Mr. Metcalf’s “joker” theory.
“I believe you are right,” responded Colonel Minturn, stroking his mustache thoughtfully. “Jove, this thing is taking some strange turns!”
Their eyes strayed to where Jarrold, sprawled out in a deck chair, was seemingly absorbed in a book. But Jack could have sworn that over the top of it he was covertly watching them.
“It is evident, to my way of thinking,” Jack ventured, “that the strange craft was the Endymion, and that, despairing of getting a wireless to Jarrold, or else on account of a break-down in their wireless, they decided to chance that method of signaling him.”