That was the message that was clicked to Tom from somewhere in the great void.

"I GET YOUR MESSAGE 'E. I.' WHAT'S WANTED? DO I HEAR YOU RIGHT?

REPEAT." Tom heard those questions in the silence of the night.

With trembling fingers Tom pressed his own key. Out into the darkness went his call for help.

"WE ARE ON EARTHQUAKE ISLAND." He gave the longitude and lat.i.tude.

"COME QUICKLY OR WE WILL BE ENGULFED IN THE SEA! WE ARE CASTAWAYS FROM THE YACHT 'RESOLUTE,' AND THE AIRSHIP 'WHIZZER.' CAN YOU SAVE US?"

Came then this query:

"WHAT'S THAT ABOUT AIRSHIP?"

"NEVER MIND AIRSHIP," clicked Tom. "SEND HELP QUICKLY! WHO ARE YOU?"

The answer flashed to him through s.p.a.ce:

"STEAMSHIP 'CAMBARANIAN' FROM RIO DE JANEIRO TO NEW YORK. JUST CAUGHT YOUR MESSAGE. THOUGHT IT A FAKE."

"NO FAKE," Tom sent back. "HELP US QUICKLY! HOW SOON CAN YOU COME?"

There was a wait, and the wireless operator clicked to Tom that he had called the captain. Then came the report:

"WE WILL BE THERE WITHIN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS. KEEP IN COMMUNICATION WITH US."

"YOU BET I WILL," flashed back Tom, his heart beating joyously, and then he let out a great shout. "We are saved! We are saved! My wireless message is answered! A steamer is on her way to rescue us!"

He rushed from the shack, calling to the others.

"What's that?" demanded Mr. Hosbrook.

Tom briefly told of how the message had come to him in the night.

"Tell them to hurry," begged the rich yacht owner. "Say that I will give twenty thousand dollars reward if we are taken off!"

"And I'll do the same," cried Mr. Jenks. "I must get to the place where--" Then he seemed to recollect himself, and stopped suddenly.

"Tell them to hurry," he begged Tom. The whole crowd of castaways, save the women, were gathered about the wireless shack.

"They'll need to hurry," spoke Mr. Parker, the gloomy scientist.

"The island may sink before morning!"

Mr. Hosbrook and the others glared at him, but he seemed to take delight in his prediction.

Suddenly the wireless instruments hummed.

"Another message," whispered Tom. He listened.

"THE 'CAMBARANIAN' WILL RUSH HERE WITH ALL SPEED," he announced, and not a heart there on that lonely and desolate island but sent up a prayer of thankfulness.

CHAPTER XXIV

"WE ARE LOST!"

There was little more sleep for any one that night. They sat up, talking over the wonderful and unexpected outcome of Tom Swift's wireless message, and speculating as to when the steamer would get there.

"Bless my pocket comb! But I told you it would come out all right, if we left it to Tom!" declared Mr. Damon.

"But it hasn't come out yet," remarked the pessimistic scientist.

"The steamer may arrive too late."

"You're a cheerful sort of fellow to take on a yachting trip,"

murmured Mr. Hosbrook, sarcastically. "I'll never invite you again, even if you are a great scientist."

"I'm going to sit and watch for the steamer," declared Mr. Damon, as he went outside the shack. The night was warm, and there was a full moon. "Which way will she come from, Tom?"

"I don't know, but I should think, that if she was on her way north, from South America, she'd pa.s.s on the side of the island on which we now are."

"That's right," agreed Captain Mentor. "She'll come up from over there," and he pointed across the ocean directly in front of the shacks and camp.

"Then I'm going to see if I can't be the first to sight her lights,"

declared Mr. Damon.

"She can't possibly get here inside of a day, according to what the operator said," declared Tom.

"Wire them to put on all the speed they can," urged the eccentric man.

"No, don't waste any more power or energy than is needed," suggested Mr. Hosbrook. "You may need the gasolene before we are rescued. They are on their way, and that is enough for now."

The others agreed with this, and so Tom, after a final message to the operator aboard the CAMBARANIAN stating that he would call him up in the morning, shut down the motor.

Mr. Damon took up his position where he could see far out over the ocean, but, as the young inventor had said, there was no possible chance of sighting the relief steamer inside of a day. Still the nervous, eccentric man declared that he would keep watch.

Morning came, and castaways brought to breakfast a better appet.i.te than they had had in some time. They were allowed larger rations, too, for it was seen that they would have just enough food to last until taken off.

"We didn't need to have made the big raft," said Mr. Fenwick, as Tom came down from his station, to report that he had been in communication with the Camabarian and that she was proceeding under forced draught. "We'll not have to embark on it, and I'm glad of it."

"Oh, we may need it yet," a.s.serted Mr. Parker. "I have been making some observations just now, and the island is in a very precarious state. It is, I believe, resting on only a slim foundation, and the least shock may break that off, and send it into the sea. That is what my observations point out."

"Then I wish you wouldn't make any more observations!" exclaimed Mrs. Nestor, with spirit. "You make me nervous."

"And me, also," added Mrs. Anderson.

"Science can not deceive, madam," retorted Mr. Parker.