Captain Andrews paused. So ended his story, which cast a gloom over the party that was not to be dispelled. Soon after, therefore, they retired, with the picture of the sea captain’s tragic death still vividly before their eyes.
Before joining the others. Jack tried to get into communication with the Sea King by wireless once more. But he failed. However, this did not worry them, as they knew that their friends must know where to find them.
“I wonder when they’ll arrive here,” said Professor Chadwick, as they prepared to spend as comfortable a night as they could on the sand. “Those repairs were surely effected quickly,” he added.
“Very quickly,” said Captain Andrews, who alone of the party had not been almost wild with delight at the prospect of the rescue. “By the way. Jack, you are quite sure that it was the Sea King that you were in communication with?”
“Of course,” rejoined the lad rather impatiently, “who else could it have been? Who would have had any object in trying to pass themselves off as the Sea King unless they——”
He stopped short and looked rather blank all of a sudden. The idea of Herrera had just crossed his mind. And then that ship that they had seen laboring in the stormy sea that afternoon?
“Pshaw!” said the lad to himself; “she had two masts and a yellow funnel, there’s no chance of that being the Tarantula.”
When he voiced this belief aloud later on, the others agreed with him. But Captain Andrews, still suspicious, determined, he said, to keep watch. The others, almost too tired to keep their eyes open, rather ridiculed this precaution, and soon sleep enwrapped every one on that desolate island.
Every one? Yes; for tired nature had asserted herself and Captain Andrews, after a hard struggle to keep awake, dozed off, woke with a start, dozed off again and finally slumbered profoundly.
Had he kept his eyes open a while longer he would have seen something approaching the island that would have caused him to keep awake with a vengeance. This object was nothing more nor less than the Tarantula, disguised cunningly by a canvas smokestack painted yellow, and two masts.