CHAPTER XVII
A BLINDING FLASH OF LIGHT
"It's an S. O. S.," screamed Joe at the top of his voice, as Curlie came hurrying up. "They sent that much in code and I got it all right. Then they tried to tell me their troubles and all I got was a mumble and grumble mixed with static, which meant nothing at all to me. Repeated it three times. Very little space in between. Should have called you, I guess, but there really wasn't time; besides I kept thinking I'd start getting what he sent."
"Where'd it come from?" Curlie asked as he snapped the receiver over his head.
"Straight out of the storm. Fifty or sixty miles northeast."
Curlie groaned. "That's what I get for being impatient. Ought to have stayed right here. It's those boys all right and we've missed them; may never pick them up again."
For a time there was silence in the wireless cabin, such a silence as one experiences in the midst of a rising storm. The flap of ropes, the creak of yard-arms, the rush of waves which were already washing the deck, the chug-chug-chug of the prow of the brave little craft as she leaped from wave-crest to wave-crest; all this made such music as an orchestra might, had every man musician of them gone mad. And this was the "silence" Curlie did not for a long time break.
"Well!" he shouted at last, "that settles one thing. I was right. They did go in search of that mythical island."
"You can't be sure," said Joe. "Might have been a fishing boat led off her course by a chase after a whale. You never can tell."
"No, that's right," Curlie agreed.