But now--now he believed he was about to get it. Moving the coil backward and forward he strained every muscle in his face in a mad effort to understand. Yes, yes, that was it! Then, just as he was getting it a terrible thing happened. There came a blinding flash of light, accompanied by a rending, tearing, deafening crash. He felt himself seized by some invisible power which wrenched every muscle, twisted every joint in his body, then flung him limp and motionless to the floor.

When he came to himself, Joe and the girl were bending over him. Joe was tearing at the b.u.t.tons of his shirt. The girl was rocking backward and forward. All but overcome with excitement, she was still attempting to chafe his right hand. When she saw him open his eyes she uttered a little cry, then toppled over in a dead faint.

"Wha--what happened?" Curlie's lips framed the words.

"Lightning," shouted Joe. "Protectors must have got damp.

Short-circuited. Raised hob. Burned out about everything, I guess."

"Can't be as bad as that. Tend to the girl," Curlie nodded toward the corner.

Joe ducked out of the cabin, to appear a moment later with a cold, damp cloth. This he spread over the girl's forehead. A moment later she sat up and looked about her.

Curlie was sitting up also. He was rubbing his head. When he saw the girl looking at him he laughed and sang:

"Oh, a sailor's life is a merry life, And it's a sailor's life for me.

"But say!" he exclaimed suddenly, "what was I doing when things went to pieces?"

Joe nodded toward the radiophone desk where coils and instruments lay piled in tangled confusion.

"You were getting a message from out the storm."

"Oh yes, and they gave me their location. It was--no, I haven't it.

Lightning drove it right out of my head. Let me think. Let me concentrate."

For a full moment there was silence, the silence of the raging sea. Then Curlie shook his head sadly.

"No, I can't remember," his lips framed the words. It was unnecessary that he shout them aloud.

"Oh!" exclaimed the girl, and for a moment it seemed that she would faint again. But she controlled herself bravely.

"We'll find them yet," she forced a brave smile. "It's a comfort just to know they're still alive, that they're near us, at least not too far away for us to save them if we can only find them."

Again there was silence. Then Curlie rose unsteadily to his feet.

"Give us a hand here, Joe, old scout," he said. "We'll get this thing back in shape. There are extra vacuum tubes, tuning-coils and the like, and plenty of all kinds of wire. We'll manage it somehow--got to."

The girl rose, to sink upon a seat in the corner.

"That's right," shouted Curlie. "You stay right here. We'll be company for each other. Fellow needs company on a night like this. Besides, I've got something to say, a lot to say, to you and Joe as soon as the radiophone is tuned up again. Got to say it before I get killed again,"

he chuckled.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE STORMY PETREL GETS AN ANSWER

The dash of rain which beat like a volley of lead upon the fuselage of the seaplane as she rose above the spray lasted but a moment.

"Just a warning of what's to come," Vincent called through the tube.

"Think we could run away from the storm?"

"We'd just get lost on the ocean and not know what location to radiophone," grumbled his companion. "Better keep circling. We can get above the storm if we must."

Once more the weary circle was commenced. With little hope of sighting land, Vincent still fixed his gaze upon the black waters below, while he sent the flash of light, now far to the right, now to the left, and now straight beneath them.

"Someone must have caught our S. O. S." he told himself. "We ought to get sight of their lights pretty soon. But then," his hopes grew faint, "not many ships in these seas. Might not have heard us. Might not be able to reach us. Might--"

He broke off abruptly. A blinding flash of lightning had illumined the waters for miles in every direction. In that flash his eyes had seen something; at least, he thought they had; some craft away to the left of them; a craft which reminded him of one he had sailed upon many a time; his father's yacht, the _Kittlewake_.

"But of course it couldn't be," he told himself. "n.o.body'd be crazy enough to--"

A second flash illumined the water, but this time, strain his eyes as he might, he caught no glimpse of craft of any sort.

"Must have dreamed it," he muttered. He closed his eyes for a second and in that second saw his sister Gladys clearly mirrored on his mind's vision. She was staggering down a pitching deck.

"Huh!" he muttered, shaking himself violently, "this business is getting my goat. I'll be delirious if I don't watch out."

Again he fixed his gaze upon the spot of light as it traveled over the water.

He had kept steadily at the task for fifteen minutes, was wondering how much longer the gas would hold out, wondering, too, whether the storm was ever going to break, when he caught the pilot's signal in the tube.

"How about trying another message?" his companion called.

"Up here?" he asked in dismay.

"I know--awful dangerous. But we've got to risk something. Lost if we don't."

"All right, I'll try." He began cautiously to unbuckle his harness.

Scarcely had he loosened two of the three straps which held him in place when the plane gave a sudden lurch. Having struck a pocket, it dropped like an elevator cage released from its cable, straight down.

"Oh--ah!" he exclaimed as he caught at a rod just in time to escape being hurled away.

"Got to be careful," he told himself, "awful careful! Have to hold on with one hand while I work with the other. Feet'll help too."

When the plane had settled again, he loosened the last strap, then began with the utmost caution to drag himself to the surface of the plane above him.

Once a vivid flash of lightning showed him the dizzy depths beneath him.

He was at that moment clinging to a rod with both hands. His legs were twined about a second. Thus he hung suspended out over two thousand feet of air and as many fathoms of water.

For a moment a dizzy sickness overcame him, but this pa.s.sed away. Again he struggled to gain the platform above. This time he was successful.

Even here he did not abandon caution. The straps were still about his waist. One of these he fastened to a rod. Then with one hand he clung to the framework before him, while with the other he worked at the task of adjusting instruments.