The great beam of light that had been boring into the darkness ahead swung round to starboard, then slowly traveled in an arc directly over the Lycoming until it came to rest on the seething waters to port. Then it retraced its path. A third time it circled overhead, lighting up the heavy canopy of clouds. Meantime Roy had regained the wireless house. Trembling with eagerness, he clamped his receivers to his ears and listened.
“WNA de KKK,” presently came a signal. “It’s your light. We saw it swing overhead three times. Can see its beams now.”
“Get a compass bearing on it and signal me,” flashed Roy.
In a few minutes the answer came. “Almost due east.”
Roy sent the news to the captain. “She’s dragged more than I thought possible,” muttered the captain as he entered the chart house. Then, turning to the steersman, he ordered, “Starboard—head her due west.”
Twenty minutes later lights flashed out directly ahead of the Lycoming, then disappeared again. It was the Empress as she rose and fell with the waves. She was only a few miles distant. A few minutes later the Lycoming was close to her.
To Roy, watching from the wireless house, it did not seem humanly possible that the Lycoming could assist the Empress. The latter lay with her nose to the storm, rising and falling with the waves and rolling violently. Roy could see two great anchor chains leading down into the water. Most of the time the Empress rode the huge swells buoyantly. But occasionally the crest of a great wave broke over her and went rushing aft with an awful roar, smashing woodwork and twisting iron. As the Lycoming’s search-light played on the Empress Roy could see that her bulwarks and rails were smashed to pieces. All but one of her small boats had carried away. Her life-rafts were gone. Part of the railing about the bridge was smashed. To Roy she seemed all but battered to pieces. To an experienced sailor like Captain Lansford, she appeared to be in good shape. The ship herself was intact.
How any earthly power could get lines aboard of her, or how it could tow her in the teeth of such a gale, even if the lines were got aboard, was more than Roy could understand. He did not believe it possible. He did not believe any small boat could exist for one minute in that raging sea. Yet he knew very well that Captain Lansford intended to assist the Empress. What he would do Roy could not conceive. All he could do was to watch and learn.
For some time Roy could not see that anything was being done. The Lycoming reduced her speed, but kept steadily on past the Empress. Then she began to swing around her in a wide arc. Roy believed the captain meant to approach close to the ship from the leeward side. But when the Lycoming continued to circle slowly around the Empress, Roy was puzzled.
The Lycoming swung completely round the Empress, but not until the circuit had been completed did Roy get an inkling of what the captain was doing. The search-light played here and there, now picking out the path of the Lycoming, now illuminating the Empress, which tossed violently at the very centre of the huge circle the Lycoming had just traced. To his intense surprise Roy saw that the water within this circle was calming down. It rose and fell as mightily as ever, but no seas broke. Giant waves mounted higher and higher, gathering volume and power as they rushed down on the Empress, but instead of breaking with a crash and hurling tons of water at the helpless steamer, they subsided without foam or fuss. It was as though some invisible hand had spread a great, elastic blanket over the face of the seething waters. They billowed and tossed beneath this invisible blanket, but they billowed and tossed harmlessly. The power of the waves to smash things was gone. Amazed, incredulous, disbelieving the very thing his eyes beheld, Roy watched the miracle that was being performed. Finally it came to him that Captain Lansford was putting oil on the sea.