These thoughts occupied him as far as his destination. Within the cabin were Captain Rollok, a giant of a man, with a fresh complexion and huge blond beard, one of his officers and Hans Pollak, the latter looking in fear of his life as the big captain berated him, in German, with force and vigor. As Jack entered the cabin, the great bulk of the captain swung round on him.
“So you are de young mans who sits in at der vireless vile dis cabbage-head goes stuffing himself midt pretzels, is it?” he demanded, with what appeared great severity, but with an underlying twinkle in his eyes.
Jack contented himself with nodding and a brief admission that he had taken Poffer’s place at the key while the latter refreshed himself. He half-expected an outburst from the big German but, to his astonishment, the captain clapped him on the back with a force that almost knocked him off his feet.
“Ach, du lieber!” he exclaimed; “it was goot dot you vod dere, uddervise dis foolish Poffer would haf left der key anyvay undt dot British cruiser would have overhauled us. Now I got a proposition to make to you. You are a vireless man. Our second operator is sick undt idt is necessary dot dere is someones at der vireless all of der time. Vill you take der chob?”
Jack hardly knew what to say. The proposal had come so abruptly that he found it hard to make up his mind.
“You would want me to help out all the way to Europe?” he asked.
“We are not going to Europe,” was the reply. “I am going to run back for der American coast undt try to dodge capture. Six million dollars is a big enough prize to make der search for us pretty active. I don’t believe dere would be a chance for us to reach der udder side.”
“Well,” said Jack, after some consideration, “I guess my holiday is off anyhow, and I might as well get down to work now as later on. All right, Captain, you can count on me.”
“Goot for you. I vill see dot you are no loser by idt,” said the big German, and so Jack, by a strange combination of undreamt-of circumstances, became the wireless man of the “gold ship,” whose subsequent adventures were destined to fill the world with wonder.
Poffer’s hours of duty ended at dinner time that evening, and by the time Jack sat down at the key, it was dark. No more word had come from the British cruiser, and so far the Kronprinzessin’s course had not been altered. A hasty message in cipher had been sent to the offices of the line in New York, but so far no orders to turn back had come through the air.
However, Jack had not been on duty an hour before the expected command came. The passengers strolling and sitting about the decks were suddenly aware that the big ship was slowing up and being turned about. The incredulous ones among them were speedily convinced that this was actually the case when it was pointed out that the moon, which had been on the starboard side of the ship in the early evening, was now to be seen off the port quarter.
Rumors ran rife throughout the great steel vessel. There had been an accident to the machinery, there were icebergs ahead, some plot against the security of the gold in the specie room had been discovered – these, and even wilder reports, were circulated. The captain and the other officers were besieged for explanations, but none were forthcoming, for the time being.
Shortly before midnight, however, the captain in person entered the smoking room with a telegram in his hand.
“Gentlemen,” he announced to those assembled there, “I am sorry to say that var has been declared bedween England and Germany, Great Britain siding against my Vaterland mit France and Russia.”
He held up his hand to quell the hub-bub that instantly broke loose. When a measure of quiet was restored, he resumed:
“Id is therefore imbossible for the voyage of this ship to continue. As you haf observed, her course has been altered. Ve are on our way back to America.”
“To New York?” demanded a score of voices.
The captain shook his head.
“New York vill be vatched more carefully than any udeer port on der Atlantic coast,” he said. “I haf not yet decided for vere I vill make; but I ask you all to take der situation philisophically and try to quiet any alarm among der lady passengers.”
The turmoil of questions and answers and excited conversation broke out again, and in the midst of it the captain’s broad form disappeared through the doorway. A few moments later, Raynor was in the wireless room after a fruitless search for his chum in other parts of the ship.
“Say, what are you doing sitting at that key?” he demanded. “Have you gone to work for the ship?”
“Looks that way, doesn’t it?” smiled Jack.
“Did you know that we are running away from British cruisers?” asked Raynor, breathlessly.
“Knew it before the ship was turned around,” said Jack, calmly. “But I couldn’t have told even you about it at the time. It was confidential. But there’s no reason why you shouldn’t hear it all now,” and he launched into a narration of the events just passed which had had such a strange culmination. He was in the midst of it, when one of the junior officers of the ship appeared.
He told the boys they would have to close the door of the wireless room and cover the ports. Not a ray of light must be visible about the ship, he informed them. In the darkness even the glow of a single port-light might give a clue as to the whereabouts of their quarry to the lurking British cruisers. In the passengers’ quarters of the great ship, similar orders were issued. Stewards went about blanketing portholes and turning out all unnecessary lights. By ten o’clock, except in the “working” quarters of the ship, – and there, they were carefully concealed, as in the wireless room, – there was not a light on board.
In order to insure obedience to his orders, the captain had had the cabin lights disconnected from the dynamos at that hour. On the darkened decks, little groups of timid passengers, who refused to go to bed, huddled and talked in low tones, constantly gazing seaward to catch sight of a tell-tale searchlight which would tell of pursuit or interception.
Through the darkness, the great ship was driven at top speed without warning lights of any description. Watches were doubled, and on the bridge, the unsleeping captain kept vigil with his anxious officers.
Through the long hours, Jack sat unwinkingly at his key. But it was not till the sky was graying the next morning that anything disturbed the silence of the air. Then came a break in the monotony. The British cruiser Essex was speaking to the Suffolk. But the messages were in code and told nothing except that Jack caught the name of the liner and knew the radio talk between the warships concerned her.
At breakfast time the passengers assembled in the saloon, for the most part anxious and haggard after sleepless nights. The captain spoke encouragingly, but even his words had little effect. Every one on board felt and showed the strain of this blind racing over the ocean with watchful naval bull-dogs lying in wait ready to pounce on the richest prize afloat on the seven seas.
CHAPTER IV
ICEBERGS AHEAD!
That night a dense fog fell. But the pace of the fleeing liner was not slackened by a fraction of a knot. Without running lights, and with darkened decks and cabins, she raced blindly onward through the smother, facing disaster if she struck an obstacle. The passengers, already nerve-racked for the most part, almost beyond endurance, named a committee which was sent to the captain to protest against the reckless risk he was taking in ploughing ahead at top speed through the blinding mist.
They returned with a report that the captain had refused to slacken speed. With reckless fatalism, it appeared, he was prepared to lose his ship in a disaster rather than run the chance of its capture by cruisers of the country with which his ruler was at war. A new feeling, one of indignation, began to spread through the big ship. Little knots gathered and angrily censured the captain’s action. Some even visited him in person, but while he was polite to all, he firmly refused to reduce speed or display