What this mission was remained, so far, a mystery to every one on board except Mr. Jukes himself, the iron-jawed and impenetrable organizer of the expedition. Up to this time he had shown no inclination to unburden himself of his secret, and although the craft was equipped with powerful wireless of the most modern type, the yacht had received no messages, nor had she sent any, under orders from Mr. Jukes.
On this particular evening Jack Ready leaned against the door of the wireless-room, a converted deck cabin, and covertly watched the heavy-shouldered, bull-necked form of the millionaire shipping man as the latter gazed over the rail across the vacant waters at the gorgeous sunset.
It was a true pageant of the heavens, such as is only to be seen in the Southern ocean. Great cloud-masses rose in wondrous forms, like glorified castle walls and turrets, glowing with purple and gold and red. Jack found himself following Mr. Jukes’ gaze. Although such spectacles had been almost nightly ones since they had steamed into the tropics, there was something wild and sinister about the present one that thrilled him.
Captain Septimus Sparhawk, the brown, gaunt captain of the yacht, whose thin face was decorated by two little dabs of grayish whiskers forward of each ear, passed by.
“Nothing to do but to look at the sky, eh?” he asked Jack, as a suspicion of a smile crept over his face.
“That’s about all, sir,” rejoined Jack, with a laugh. “I expect to see spiders spinning webs on my instruments every day. I haven’t touched the key since we sailed.”
The captain shook his head. He was an old and loyal employee of the shipping man, and not much given to words. But, apparently, now he felt called upon to express himself.
“It’s a queer business, lad,” he said, “and it may get queerer still before we find out what it’s all about. I’m as much in the dark as you or the cabin boy. But right now that sunset worries me more than anything else.”
“You’re on the look-out for a storm?” asked Jack, noting a sudden look of anxiety in the captain’s pale blue eyes, surrounded by a network of tiny wrinkles, due to long gazing into salty gales.
“Worse than that, Ready,” was the rejoinder. “This is the hurricane season in these parts and the glass,—I’ve just taken a squint at it,—is dropping as if it never meant to stop.”