“Well,” said Tom, “if we do have to pay tribute to Neptune, I hope we won’t be so badly off as the poor fellow who, the first hour, was afraid he was going to die, and, the second hour, was afraid he couldn’t die.”
“Don’t fret about dying, boys,” put in the ship’s doctor, a jolly little man, with a paunch that denoted a love of good living; “You fellows are so lucky that they couldn’t kill you with an axe. Though that knife did come pretty near doing the trick, didn’t it? ‘The sweet little cherub that sits up aloft, looking after the life of poor Jack,’ was certainly working overtime, when that Malay went for you to-day.”
“Yes,” returned Dick, “but he slipped a cog in not looking after the poor fellow that brute wounded first. By the way, doctor, how is he? Will he live?”
“O, he’ll pull through all right,” answered the doctor. “I gave his wound the first rough dressing before the ambulance took him away. Luckily, the blade missed any of the vital organs, and a couple of months in the hospital will bring him around all right. That is, unless the knife was poisoned. These beggars sometimes do this, in order to make assurance doubly sure. I picked up the knife as it lay on the pier, and will turn it over to the authorities to-morrow. They’ll have to use it in evidence, when the case comes up for trial.”
He reached into his breast pocket as he spoke and brought out the murderous weapon. The boys shuddered as they looked at it and realized how near they had come to being its victims. They handled it gingerly as they passed it around, being very careful to avoid even a scratch, in view of what the doctor had said about the possibility of it being poisoned.
It was nearly a foot in length, with a massive handle that gave it a secure grip as well as additional force behind the stroke. The hilt was engraved with curious characters, probably an invocation to one of the malignant gods to whom it was consecrated. The blade was broad, with the edge of a razor and the point of a needle. But what gave it a peculiarly deadly and sinister significance was the wavy, crooked lines followed by the steel, and which indicated the hideous wounds it was capable of inflicting.
“Nice little toy, isn’t it?” asked the doctor.
“It certainly is,” replied Bert. “A bowie knife is innocent, compared with this.”
“What on earth is it,” asked Dick, “that makes these fellows so crazy to kill those that have never done them an injury and that they have never even seen? I can understand how the desire for revenge may prompt a man to go to such lengths to get even with an enemy, but why they attack every one without distinction is beyond me.”
“Well,” replied the doctor, “it’s something with which reason has nothing to do. The Malays are a bloodthirsty, merciless race. They brood and sulk, until, like that old Roman emperor – Caligula, wasn’t it? – they wish that the human race had only one neck, so that they could sever it with a single blow. They are sick of life and determine to end it all, but before they go, all the pent up poison of hate that has been fermenting in them finds expression in the desire to take as many as possible with them. Then too, there may be some obscure religious idea underneath it all, of offering to the gods as many victims as possible, and thus winning favor for themselves. Or, like the savage despots of Africa, who decree that when they are buried hundreds of their subjects shall be slaughtered and buried in the same grave, they may feel that their victims will have to serve them in the future world. Scientists have never analyzed the matter satisfactorily.”
“Well,” said Dick, as they rose from the table, “one doesn’t have to be a scientist to know this much at least – that wherever a crazy Malay happens to be, it’s a mighty healthy thing to be somewhere else.”
“I guess nobody aboard this steamer would be inclined to dispute that,” laughed the doctor, as they separated and went on deck.
Although his duties did not begin until the following day, Bert was eager beyond anything else to inspect the wireless equipment of the ship, and went at once to the wireless room, followed by the others.
It was with immense satisfaction that he established that here he had under his hand the very latest in wireless telegraphy. From the spark key to the antennae, waving from the highest mast of the ship, everything was of the most approved and up to date type. No matter how skilful the workman, he is crippled by lack of proper tools; and Bert’s heart exulted as he realized that, in this respect, at least he had no reason for complaint.
“It’s a dandy plant, fellows,” he gloated. “There aren’t many Atlantic liners have anything on this.”
“How far can she talk, Bert?” asked Dick, examining the apparatus with the keenest interest.
“That depends on the weather, very largely,” answered Bert. “Under almost any conditions she’s good for five hundred miles, and when things are just right, two or three times as far.”
“What’s the limit, anyway, Bert?” asked Tom. “How far have they been able to send under the very best conditions?”
“I don’t believe there is any real limit,” answered Bert. “I haven’t any doubt that, before many years, they’ll be able to talk half way round the world. Puck, you know, in the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ boasted that he would ‘put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes.’ Well, the wireless will go him one better, and go round in less than forty seconds. Why, only the other day at Washington, when the weather conditions were just right, the officials there heard two stations talking to each other, off the coast of Chili, six or seven thousand miles away. Of course, ships will never talk at that distance, because they can’t get a high enough mast or tower to overcome the curvature of the earth. But from land stations it is only a question of getting a high enough tower. They can talk easily now from Berlin to Sayville, Long Island, four thousand miles, by means of towers seven or eight hundred feet high. The Eiffel Tower at Paris, because still higher, has a longer range. It isn’t so very long ago that they were glad enough to talk across a little creek or canal, a few feet wide. Then they tried an island, three or four miles away, then another, fourteen miles from the mainland. By the time they had done that, they knew that they had the right principle, and that it was only a matter of time before they’d bind the ends of the earth together. It started as a creeping infant; now, it’s a giant, going round the world in its seven league boots.”
“Hear hear,” cried Dick, “how eloquent Bert is getting. He’ll be dropping into poetry next.”
“Well,” chipped in Tom, “there is poetry sure enough in the crash of the spark and its leap out into the dark over the tumbling waves from one continent to another, but, to me, it’s more like witchcraft. It’s lucky Marconi didn’t live two or three hundred years ago. He’d surely have been burned at the stake, for dabbling in black magic.”
“Yes,” rejoined Bert, “and Edison and Tesla would have kept him company. But now clear out, you fellows, and let me play with this toy of mine. I want to get next to all its quips and quirks and cranks and curves, and I can’t do it with you dubs talking of poets and witches. Skip, now,” and he laughingly shooed them on deck.
Left to himself, he went carefully over every detail of the equipment. Everything – detector, transmitter, tuning coil and all the other parts – were subjected to the most minute and critical inspection, and all stood the test royally. It was evident that no niggardly consideration of expense had prevented the installation of the latest and best materials. Bert’s touch was almost caressing, as he handled the various parts, and his heart thrilled with a certain sense of ownership. There had been a wireless plant at one of the college buildings, and he had become very expert in its use; but hundreds of others had used it, too, and he was only one among many. Moreover, that plant had filled no part in the great world of commerce or of life, except for purposes of instruction. But this was the real thing, and from the time the steamer left the wharf until, on its return, it again swung into moorings, he would be in complete control. How many times along the invisible current would he feel the pulsing of the world’s heart; what messages of joy or pain or peril would go from