“I don’t see that that follows,” struck in Jack. “I’ve just been thinking that Herrera, judging from his large crew, must have most of his fighting men right here on board the Tarantula. In such a case, the ones left at the plantation can’t be much more formidable than those slaves Ned told us about a while back.”
“That does sound reasonable,” assented Tom, “so then it will be our best plan to make for the coast at once. Do you think you could find the mouth of that river again, Ned?”
“Captain Andrews has its exact bearings,” rejoined the “wireless” lad. “I guess we could pick it up with no more trouble than we’d have in making any other port.”
“That sounds good,” gleefully exclaimed Jack. “I reckon it will be our best plan of action, too.”
“More especially as Herrera and company are going to have bad headaches when they do wake up, and will take some time to get their wits together,” said Tom with a grin. “By that time, if all goes well, we ought to have secured the freedom of our party.”
“Jove! But there’s one thing we were almost forgetting,” cried Ned suddenly.
“What’s that?”
The question proceeded from Tom.
“This craft has wireless. When the bunch comes back to life they can flash a message to the plantation telling them to be on the lookout for us. That is, if they guess where we’ve gone, and there isn’t much doubt that they will.”
“Right you are, Ned Bangs,” agreed Jack; “but I guess with what we know about wireless it won’t take over and above long to fix the Tarantula’s apparatus so that it won’t be any more good than a bunch of junk.”