A WHISPER OF DANGER.

Jack made his second eastward trip on the Ajax under smiling skies and seas almost as smooth as glass. Nothing out of the routine happened, and in due course the Ajax, once more in ballast, cleared from Antwerp for the home run. Jack had heard nothing more from Mr. Jukes and deemed that the magnate had utterly cast him off.

Before he left the hospital, he had had visits from Captain Dennis and his daughter and from Tom Jukes, who came secretly and brought the information that, although his father was furious with the young wireless man for rejecting what he deemed a magnificent offer, he would yet pay Jack’s hospital bill.

“He’ll do nothing of the sort,” Jack had flared up, and when he left the institution, it was the lad himself who footed the bill.

It ate quite a hole in the check that was his reward for his share in the detection of the tobacco smugglers, but it would have choked him to think of accepting Mr. Jukes’ charity after the scene at his bedside the morning after he had received his injury.

But the disfavor with which he was regarded by Mr. Jukes was the only cloud on Jack’s horizon. Since that night in New York, Captain Braceworth’s manner toward the young wireless boy had changed. He was still austere and silent, but now and then, as he swung past the wireless room on his way forward or to his cabin, he would exchange a word or two with the lad. Perhaps he never guessed how much this encouraged the boy who, on his first voyage, had set down the skipper of the Ajax as a cruel, harsh despot.

Knot after knot the steadily revolving engines of the Ajax brought her closer to home. The weather continued fine until one day, when Jack was half wishing something would happen, the curtain began to draw up on what was to prove a drama of the deep, destined to test every man on board the big tanker.

A fog, dense, swirling and moist as a wet sponge, shut down all about the Ajax that morning soon after breakfast. The captain donned his oil-skins and took up his position on the bridge, to stay there, as was his custom, till the fog should lift and everything be secure again.

The chief engineer was sent for and instructed to keep his force in the grimy regions below, keyed up for instant obedience to orders from the bridge, for the Ajax was on the Atlantic lane, a well-traveled, crowded ocean track.

Like a blind man, the big tanker felt her way along, now starting forward and now almost stopping with an air of fright, as some fancied obstruction loomed in her path.

Through the weary day and the long night that followed, the Ajax groped her way through the fog blanket that hung like a dense mist-shroud over the sullenly heaving sea. It was a marine game of touch and go, with possibly death and disaster for the stakes.

The engine-room telegraph spun in a weary succession of “Come ahead”—“Slow”—“Ahead”—“Slow”—“Stop her”—and “Come ahead, slow” again.

When daylight came, it shone on the fog walls that bound the Ajax prisoner. The wan light showed Jack the figures of the captain and his first officer on the bridge. He knew that through the long night they had kept their weary vigil. But so dense was the fog that it was not always possible to see the bridge from the after superstructure.

Only when light and vagrant breezes sent the fog-wreaths fluttering and writhing, like ghosts, could a blurred view of the forward part of the ship be obtained.

Jack, too, had been on duty all night and he felt dull and wretched. Through the fog had come calls from other ships, and vague whisperings and chatterings, all fraught with fear and caution.

So far as those on the Ajax knew, there was no ship closer to them than the Plutonia of the Smithson Lines. Jack had been busy through the night, running back and forth with messages. Now, as he came to the door of his cabin for a breath of the fog-laden air, he was musing to himself on the anxious look on the captain’s furrowed face.

It was not the fog. Jack had seen the captain guide his ship through even denser smothers than the present one. He had always been his calm, collected, even cold, self.

But now the very air appeared to be vibrant with some vague apprehension which the boy could not name or even guess at. But it was something that lay outside the fog. Some overshadowing peril of more than ordinary imminence.

As the steamer crawled forward, the mournful hooting of her siren sounding like the very spirit of the mist, Jack revolved all these things in his mind. He felt vaguely troubled.

It was no small thing that could worry the stalwart skipper of the Ajax, as he palpably was worried. Fog was dangerous, yes, but what with the wireless and the extraordinary caution observed, the peril was reduced to a minimum.

The watches forward had been doubled and in the crow’s nest two men had been stationed. But that was customary in a fog. Suddenly, as Jack stood there, his wireless alarm,—he had perfected the device and had made application for a patent on the same,—began to clamor loudly.

Jack hurried to his post. It was the Westerland, a hundred and fifty miles east and considerably to the south, calling.

“Dense fog clearing here,” so the message ran, “but many large icebergs in vicinity. If in fog, use great caution. Please repeat warning.

Jack’s heart gave a bound.

“Icebergs!”

So it was fear of the white terrors of the north that kept the captain chained to the bridge with that anxious look on his weather-beaten face.