There was nothing to be done except to wait for another wireless call for help from the unseen vessel in distress. The first message included some figures which seemed like a frantic attempt to give the latitude and longitude of the stranger, but they were as puzzling as the rest of it.

"That wireless operator must be rattled, whoever he is," said one of the liner's officers. "Maybe his coat-tails are on fire."

Beckoning David to follow him to the chart room he added, with a gesture of dismay:

"Here we are, and I'm blessed if his figures don't put him somewhere in the middle of Canada, high and dry on a mountain range. As if we didn't have troubles enough!"

Captain Thrasher was irritable for the first time in this ill-fated voyage of the Roanoke, as he exclaimed from the bridge:

"I can't go in search of the confounded lunatic even if he is afire. What right has he to ask help of me when my bows are caved in like an old hat, with no chance at all of getting under way before night, and my ship half full of water? I'm trying to find help myself."

It was perhaps a half hour later when another message came winging its way through space. Captain Thrasher read it aloud, with frowning earnestness:

Fire spreading aft. Must abandon ship before long. Lives in danger. Help! Help!

The figures of latitude and longitude were repeated at the end of the message, and the previous mistakes corrected. The chart showed that the burning vessel lay about forty miles to the south-east of the helpless Roanoke.

"Why doesn't he say who and what he is?" growled Captain Thrasher. "If he is a big passenger steamer he is in a bad fix and no mistake. Tell the operator to ask him more about it, quick. And tell him we are in no shape to go after him. My own people have to come first."

Captain Thrasher was more anxious than surprised. He had long since learned that nothing was too improbable to happen at sea, and he took it almost as a matter of course that collision and fire should occur fifty miles apart in the same twenty-four hours. It went sorely against his training to leave these other victims of disaster to shift for themselves, and he walked the bridge with restless tread until a third message was brought to him. It read:

Yacht "Restless." New York for Cherbourg. Owner on board. This may be last message. No hope of saving vessel. For God's sake pick us up.

"I have seen that steamer somewhere in port," said Captain Thrasher. "She must carry a crew of forty or fifty men. Well, I can't pick 'em up if the gilt-edged owner sends me a million dollars by wireless. Give them our position again and tell them we will keep a sharp lookout for their boats till nightfall and maybe longer."

As if in answer to the captain's words a final call came from the Restless:

Owner give you million dollars to come at once. Good-by. I'm off.

"He's a cheerful sport, that wireless gentleman," observed Captain Thrasher. "But I wonder if he got our position. I'm afraid not. I pray the good Lord their boats got away in time."

While the liner was by no means out of danger, the situation of the Restless people fairly tore at the captain's heartstrings. He was not a man to confess himself beaten in any crisis without trying to find a way out. He pored over the charts, studied the weather signs, tugged at his beard, and muttered savagely to himself. But he did not decide to act until the fog had vanished before a pleasant breeze in the early afternoon. The sun came out and the sea danced blue to the far horizon.

Then the captain delivered his orders with stern directness. Calling the third officer, he said:

"Mr. Briggs, you will take the number three boat and stand about fifteen miles to the sou'-east. If the Restless boats are heading for us, you should be able to pick them up before nightfall and show them the way. Otherwise they may miss us. I shall expect you aboard by nine o'clock, at the latest. Watch for our rockets."

Mr. Briggs saluted, and mustered his crew. David Downes belonged in the number three boat, and Mr. Briggs grinned as the lad hurried up. He had not forgotten the trip to the wreck of the Pilgrim. As the boat was lowered, Captain Thrasher gazed grimly overside, realizing that he might need all his men and boats before night. But he had staked his judgment on being able to keep the liner afloat, and he was ready to face results without flinching.

The breeze dimpled the lazy swells and sail was hoisted in the boat. The men lounged on the thwarts while the stout craft bore away to the southward, and David fell to thinking of that other rescue during his first voyage. This was like a summer pleasure cruise with no danger in sight. Mr. Briggs at the tiller took a different view, which was colored by his arduous years at sea.

"There's nothing as bad as fire," said he, as if talking to himself. "A crew thinks it can master it until it is too late to get away in any kind of shape. I was in a bark that burned and my boat was adrift a week, without food or water to speak of. We never thought of quitting ship till the decks blew up and we had to go overboard, head first."

"This wireless is like talkin' to the bloomin' ghosts of dead men," muttered an English seaman. "You cawn't make me believe there's any burnin' vessel out 'ere till I sees it. We might as well go chasin' a bad dream, that's wot it is."

The crew became silent, while the boat hissed through the long seas, and the black hull of the Roanoke dropped lower and lower behind them. Wireless telegraphy was too recent an aid to sea-faring to seem real to these simple sailors; this was the first time its workings had touched their lives, and they were not ready to take the burning yacht on faith unseen.

After three hours had slid past Mr. Briggs began to sweep the sea with his glasses, standing in the stern-sheets, with the tiller between his knees. He had run down his fifteen miles of southing, but the blue horizon line was without a speck to mar it.

He decided to risk stretching his orders a bit by keeping on his course for another hour or so. The breeze still held and he could stand back for the Roanoke with free sheets and oars out. He knew that if the boats of the Restless should drift beyond the steamer lanes or trans-Atlantic routes, days and even weeks might pass without their being sighted or picked up.

The perplexed officer was on the point of giving up the search when his keen eye caught sight of a faint smudge between sea and sky. It looked like a tiny fragment of cloud, but it might be smoke. He ordered his men to their oars, and the boat increased her speed.

"If it is a steamer's smoke she may have rescued them," said he; "if not, it may be the yacht, still afloat."

The ashen-colored smudge of smoke grew in size as they steered toward it until it became a trailing banner.

"No funnels could make all that mess," shouted Mr. Briggs, as he flourished his glasses. "That is the bonfire, and it must be pretty near the end of it. I'm surprised that she's stayed afloat this long."

He was a good prophet, for while he stared, the smoke suddenly spread skyward like a huge fan, hung for a moment, and then vanished, except for tattered fringes of vapor that drifted slowly to leeward.

"That's the end of her," cried Mr. Briggs. "She blew up and sank with one big puff. Her boats ought to be sighted before long."

There was no more thought of returning to the Roanoke empty-handed. The men rowed like mad, as if they were matched in a race for life, not realizing that the smoke had been sighted a good ten miles away. It was near sunset when Mr. Briggs had a glimpse of a white dot far ahead which he took to be a boat. As they pulled nearer, he saw that it was a life-raft covered with men who were paddling with oars and bits of plank. It was easy work to get alongside and pass them a line in such calm weather as this.

It was easy work to get alongside and pass them a line.

The grimy, blistered men who cheered as the boat prepared to take them aboard had no belongings to hamper the transfer. Some of them were half naked and it was plain to read that they had left their vessel in the most desperate haste, after fighting fire to the last moment. First over the gunwale was a very stout derelict in dripping blue trousers, who puffed like a porpoise as he sputtered:

"Can't swim a stroke, but floated like a cork. How's that? Me the owner? Not on your life. I'm the wireless juggler that sent you the holler for help. No more life on the ocean wave for Willie. I've been eating smoke and spitting cinders since yesterday."

While this undismayed survivor babbled on as if his tongue were hung in the middle, David was trying to drag from the raft a ragged man who lay limp and face downward. The task was too heavy for his strength, and with great difficulty two pairs of arms heaved and lifted until they rolled their burden inboard. Without pausing to look him over, David lent a hand elsewhere until the Restless party, twenty strong, was stowed aboard and the life-raft cast adrift.

Most of them were able to sit up and talk. The man who seemed to be worst off was the first one who had been helped aboard by David. The late chief officer of the yacht made his way toward this huddled and senseless figure and called to Mr. Briggs:

"Here's the owner, all in a heap. Looks like his heart has gone back on him, for he wasn't in the water more than five minutes."

As he lay propped against a thwart the owner's back was toward David at his oar. The cadet had no idea that he had ever clapped eyes on him before, and he listened with eager interest to the answers which the other men gave to Mr. Briggs's questions.

"The rest of us are in two boats, somewhere to the eastward, sir," they explained. "No, there was nobody left on board. The way it was, the captain and them others was fightin' the fire aft, and they got cut off from us who was driven clear up into the bows of her before we got through. She was just a solid blaze amidships, understand, and there was no getting back to each other. The other crowd stood it as long as they could, and then when it was take to the water or be frizzled where they stood, they pitched the boats over and got away. The fog hadn't begun to lift then. They were going to lay by and wait for us, but the blazin' heat below set her engines goin' in a kind of dying flurry and she ran a while before she stopped for good. We couldn't get below to stop her, and we couldn't go overboard for fear of bein' chewed up by the screw, and so there we stuck up forward till we could get the raft over. The two boats lost us in the fog, and you know the rest of it."

"The owner's boy was with the captain's crowd aft. Mr. Cochran put him in the skipper's charge when things looked desperate," explained the mate of the Restless. "When Mr. Cochran got separated from the lad and couldn't get aft to him, and saw him drift out of sight in the fog, he just threw up his hands and went clean off his head."

"Mr. Cochran! The owner's boy!" gasped David Downes. He leaned over and raised the pallid face of the owner of the Restless. Yes, although sadly changed, it was the once pompous and lordly man of millions who had rescued, befriended, and then forsaken him in New York. And Arthur, the slim, delicate lad with the shy, confiding smile who had been so fond of the cadet—poor lad, he was adrift in an open boat beyond help from the Roanoke's boat. David forgot all the resentment he had cherished against the father, as he tried to heave him into a more comfortable position and anxiously searched his face for signs of life.

"He was a fine boy. Heart as big as a cork fender," said a Restless seaman. "God bring him safe to port, say I. Will we be after goin' in search of the boats, do you know?"

Mr. Briggs shook his head reluctantly. He must return to the Roanoke with all haste.

"We have done all we can," he answered slowly. "Our own ship needs us, and we are lucky to have done this much. It is awful tough on Mr. Cochran, I know, to leave his boy adrift, but we wouldn't have one chance in a million of finding them to-night."

These words seemed to awaken the dulled understanding of the father. He roused from his stupor and hoarsely quavered:

"Where is Arthur? Leave the boy adrift? What did I hear? What do you mean? There's some mistake. Look for him till you find him, I tell you. Oh, my boy, my boy, I never meant to forsake you."

David patted him on the shoulder and wiped the clammy face with the sleeve of his jersey. The great man was no more than a sodden lump of sorrowing humanity, crushed and useless, and David wished that he might somehow comfort him. Mr. Cochran had fallen back speechless and exhausted, and he did not come to himself again until the boat was well on her way toward the Roanoke. His wits were clearing, and with a trace of his old domineering manner he addressed Mr. Briggs:

"Keep up the search until you find him, my man. Ten thousand dollars for you and your men if you give me back my boy."

"We have been headed the other way for an hour," replied the third officer, with pity in his voice. "I am obeying my orders. That is all I can do."

"What? You have abandoned the yacht's boats?" Mr. Cochran almost screamed. "Turn about with you, instantly. Don't you understand? I'll make every man of you rich for life."

He tried to struggle to his feet, but muscular hands gripped his heaving shoulders and he fell back lamenting:

"The hardship will kill him. What shall I say to his mother? Oh, what shall I tell her?"

It was the first time that David had heard Arthur's mother mentioned. He felt a deeper pang at the thought of her. But, alas, Mr. Stanley P. Cochran had to learn in this cruel hour that his millions could not buy a way through all difficulties. He fell to abusing the chief engineer of the Restless, who crouched in front of him.

"You let the yacht run away from them," he stormed. "Why didn't you stop your engines, you worthless, cowardly scoundrel?"

The engineer raised a pair of hands which were raw with burns, and felt of his blistered face. With unexpected patience he responded:

"I was the last man to come on deck. I cooked the hide off me to leave things right below. Heaven only knows what started her up again. There was no getting down there again, you know that."

The owner once more fell to mourning.

"How can I show my face anywhere? I am saved and Arthur is lost. Why couldn't it have been the other way?"

"He was takin' the lad abroad for a vacation trip," explained a harsh voice in David's ear. "The sea voyage was for the lad's health, and the old man was coaxed into pryin' himself loose from his business for once. We're sorry it wasn't the swelled-up money-grubbin' swine that went adrift instead of his boy."

Other men of the Restless grunted approval of their comrade's verdict. But David had glimpsed a new side of Mr. Cochran's nature. He would indeed have sacrificed himself to save his son. The truth of it was in his trembling voice, in the very pose of his drooping shoulders. It was hard to believe that this was the father who had fairly dragged his son away from David in the room of the hospital in New York. As Mr. Cochran began to pull himself out of his collapse, he managed to twist around so that he was looking up into David's face, which was in the light thrown by a boat-lantern. For several minutes the father stared at the tanned young seaman, as if bewildered and groping in his memory. Then he burst out with a kind of surprised snarl:

"It's the boy that had no manners or decency, the young cub that made me sick of him. What are you doing here, alive and well, with my son lost and dying out yonder, lost at sea? How can such things be?"

"I helped pick you up at any rate," faltered David, taken all aback. "And I'd gladly stay out here a week to help you find Arthur."

"You safe and well!" repeated Mr. Cochran, "and my Arthur abandoned. It's all a nightmare. It must be that."

His anger veered against Mr. Briggs, and he bombarded him with threats, bribes, and pleadings, until the rockets from the Roanoke soared into the clear night and the yacht's people shouted at the welcome sight. Then Mr. Cochran clutched at a new hope. He declared that he would buy the ship if only he might persuade the captain to search for the lost boat until he found it.

The liner was almost ready to limp on her way when the boat rejoined her. Repairs had been made with better success than Captain Thrasher hoped for. His anxious scrutiny convinced him that, with fair weather, his shattered bow could withstand the sea, and he had determined to proceed very slowly on his course toward New York. He had been in wireless communication with two steamers, one of which stood by until dusk, when the liner sent word that she would not transfer her people. The captain had also told them to look out for the boats from the burning yacht. This news was carried to Mr. Cochran, who feebly tottered forward in breathless haste to find the commander. David saw the bedraggled magnate swaying against the door of the captain's room as he begged:

"But I'll reimburse the company. I don't care what it costs. What if it does cost you your position? I'll pay you double the salary to do nothing for the rest of your life. It's my only boy, Captain. Your ship won't run any risk."

The voice of Captain Thrasher rose in response:

"I have said my last word. Do you think I'll stake the lives of two thousand people against one or twenty? Go below and get some rest. I can't talk to you to-night."

When David went aft in the late evening with the fourth officer to set the log over the stern, the liner was vibrating to the steady thrust of her engines, and her broad wake foamed white in the starlit darkness. Against the rail beside them leaned a portly man, his face hidden in the shadows. He was gazing toward the southward over the ocean which rolled away in mystery, vast and obscure.

David answered, "Ay, ay, sir," in reply to an order, and the man at the rail turned at sound of the lad's voice. As the mate raised his lantern to read the log-dial, Mr. Cochran exclaimed:

"It's you again, is it? I am sorry I spoke to you as I did to-day. I am grateful for your part in saving me and my men, and I was out of my head, I guess."

This strangely softened mood was new to David, but his sympathetic heart was quick to meet it, and to let bygones be bygones.

"I wish I could help you, sir," he returned. "But I am just chockfull of hope that we will hear from Arthur. He may be picked up before we are landed. We'll have him back again. You can bet your life on that."

The father gazed again across the darkened sea. He was leaving his only son behind him, and all the pride of wealth and self and power had been stripped from him. All he could think of to say as he shook hands with David was:

"Arthur was very fond of you, and I am sorry that I came between you two."