A CONFESSION
For an hour Curlie Carson had been seated in the radiophone cabin of the Kittlewake. During that time his delicately adjusted amplifier and his wonderful ears had enabled him to pick up many weird and unusual messages. Listening in at sea before a great storm is like wandering on the beach after that same storm; you never can tell what you may pick up. But though fragments of many messages had come to him, not one of any importance to the Kittlewake had reached his ears. If during that time any message from the Stormy Petrel had been sent out, it had been lost in the crash and snap of static which now kept up a constant din in his ears.
Again doubt assailed him. He had no positive knowledge that the boys in the plane had gone in search of that mysterious island of the old chart. They might, for all he knew, be at this moment enjoying a rich feast on some island off the coast of America.
"Cuba, for instance," he told himself. "Not at all impossible. Short trip for such a seaplane."
"And here," he grumbled angrily to himself, "here I am risking my own life and the life of my companions and crew, inviting death to all these, and this on a mere conjecture. Guess I'm a fool."
The gale was rising every moment. Even as he spoke the prow of the boat reared in air, to come down with such an impact as made one believe she had stepped on something solid.
Just when Curlie's patience with himself and all the rest of the world was exhausted, Joe Marion opened the door. The wind, boosting him across the threshold, slammed the door after him.
"Whew!" he sputtered. "Going to be rotten. Tell you what, I don't like it. Dangerous, I'd say!"
"Nothing's dangerous," smiled Curlie, greatly pleased to see that someone at least was more disturbed than himself. "Nothing's really dangerous since the invention of the radiophone. Ocean, desert, Arctic wilderness; it's all the same. Sick, lost, shipwrecked? All you've got to do is keep your head clear and your radiophone dry and tuned up. It'll find you a way out."
"Yes, but," hesitated Joe, "how the deuce you going to pack a radiophone outfit, all those coils, batteries and boxes, when you're shipwrecked? How you going to keep 'em dry with the rain pelting you from above and the salt water beating at you from below? Lot of sense to that! Huh!" he grunted contemptuously. "That for your radiophone!" He snapped his finger. "And that for your old sloppy ocean! Give me a square yard of good old terra firma and I'll get along without all your modern inventions."