“No, he isn’t,” came the staggering reply, in a voice that was half a sob. It was a bolt from the blue that had assailed the lad, and who will blame him for being utterly unnerved by the blow fate had just dealt him.
Tom was silent for an instant. Tidings that stun have a way of sinking in slowly. Then, as the two lads stood at the foot of the ladder, he flung his arm around Jack’s shoulder, and from his gritted teeth came speech:
“If harm has come to him. Jack, those who have caused it will have to pay—and pay big!”
And so the two lads ascended the ladder to the Sea King’s deck, followed by the awe-struck Jupe.
CHAPTER VI—NED BANGS’ STORY
It was Ned Bang’s, the boyish wireless operator of the Sea King, who met them at the head of the ladder. Behind him pressed a ring of curious faces, the bronzed countenances of seamen. Some incandescents had been switched on as the newcomers gained the deck, and in the yellow light Jack saw that all the faces that gazed into his bore the unmistakable stamp of agitation.
Bangs, besides being the wireless operator of the Sea King, was something more. He had been a pupil of Professor Chadwick’s and a school fellow of Jack’s, and was quite a scientific adept along the lines he had chosen to follow.
But Jack and Tom exchanged merely hasty words of greeting with the youngster who stood facing them, pallid-faced under his coat of tan and shaken evidently by some recent shock.
“What is it, Ned? What has happened?” demanded Jack eagerly, as soon as the boys had clasped hands. “Where is father? Why are you out here alone?”
“It’s—it’s a long story. Jack,” half-stammered Ned. “I—I’m afraid that we who are here on board don’t show up to very good advantage in it. But you must be the judge of that. Shall we go below, where we can talk?”