The Tom Swift Megapack

by Victor Appleton

  “Well, are you off?” asked Mr. Damon, kindly. “I wish some of us could relieve you, Tom.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind it,” answered the lad “Perhaps the message may come tonight.”

  Hardly had he spoken than there sounded the ominous rumble and shaking that presaged another earthquake. The shack rocked, and threatened to come down about their heads.

  “We must be doomed!” cried Mr. Parker. “The island is about to sink! Make for the raft!”

  “Wait and see how bad it is,” counseled Mr. Hosbrook. “It may be only a slight shock.”

  Indeed, as he spoke, the trembling of the island ceased, and there was silence. The two ladies, who had retired to their own private shack, ran out screaming, and Mr. Anderson and Mr. Nestor hastened over to be with their wives.

  “I guess it’s passed over,” spoke Mr. Fenwick.

  An instant later there came another tremor, but it was not like that of an earthquake shock. It was more like the rumble and vibration of an approaching train.

  “Look!” cried Tom, pointing to the left. Their gaze went in that direction, and, under the light of a full moon they saw, sliding into the sea, a great portion of one of the rocky hills.

  “A landslide!” cried Captain Mentor. “The island is slowly breaking up.”

  “It confirms my theory!” said Mr. Parker, almost in triumph.

  “Forget your theory for a while, Parker, please,” begged Mr. Hosbrook. “We’re lucky to have left a place on which to stand! Oh, when will we be rescued?” he asked hopelessly.

  The worst seemed to be over at least for the present, and, learning that the two ladies were quieted, Tom started up the hill to his wireless station. Mr. Damon and Mr. Fenwick went with him, to aid in starting the motor and dynamo. Then, after the message had been clicked out as usual Tom would begin his weary waiting.

  They found that the earthquake shock had slightly disturbed the apparatus, and it took them half an hour to adjust it. As there had been a delay on account of the landslide, it was eleven o’clock before Tom began sending out any flashes, and he kept it up until midnight. But there came no replies, so he shut off the power, and prepared to get a little rest.

  “It looks pretty hopeless; doesn’t it?” said Mr. Fenwick, as he and Mr. Damon were on their way back to the sleeping shack.

  “Yes, it does. Our signal hasn’t been seen, no ships have passed this way, and our wireless appeal isn’t answered. It does look hopeless but, do you know, I haven’t given up yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I have faith in Tom Swift’s luck!” declared the eccentric man. “If you had been with him as much as I have, up in the air, and under the water, and had seen the tight places he has gotten out of, you’d feel the same, too!”

  “Perhaps, but here there doesn’t seem to be anything to do. It all depends on some one else.”

  “That’s all right. You leave it to Tom. He’ll get an answer yet, you see if he doesn’t.”

  It was an hour past midnight. Tom tossed uneasily on the hard bed in the wireless shack. The telephone receiver on his ear hurt him, and he could not sleep.

  “I may as well sit up for a while,” he told himself, and he arose. In the dimness of the shack he could see the outlines of the dynamo and the motor.

  “Guess I’ll start her up, and send out some calls,” he murmured. “I might just happen to catch some ship operator who is up late. I’ll try it.”

  The young inventor started the motor, and soon the dynamo was purring away. He tested the wireless apparatus. It shot out great long sparks, which snapped viciously through the air. Then, in the silence of the night, Tom clicked off his call for help for the castaways of Earthquake Island.

  For half an hour he sent it away into space, none of the others in their shacks below him, awakening. Then Tom, having worked off his restless fit, was about to return to bed.

  But what was this? What was that clicking in the telephone receiver at his ear? He listened. It was not a jumble of dots and dashes, conveying through space a message that meant nothing to him. No! It was his own call that was answered. The call of his station—“E. I.”—Earthquake Island!

  “Where are you? What’s wanted?”

  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 latitude. “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 space:

  “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 pass 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 appetite 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,” asserted 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.

  “Well it can keep quiet about what it knows, and not make a person have cold chills,” replied Mary’s mother. “I’m sure we will be rescued in time.”

  There was a slight tremor of an earthquake, as they were eating dinner that day, but, aside from causing a little alarm it did no damage. In the afternoon, Tom again called up the approaching steamer, and was informed that, because of a slight accident, it could not arrive until the next morning. Every effort would be made to keep up speed, it was said. There was much disappointment over this, and Mr. Damon was observed to be closely examining the food supply, but hope was too strong to be easily shattered now.

  Mr. Parker went off alone, to make some further “observations” as he called them, but Mr. Hosbrook warned him never again to speak of his alarming theories.

  Mr. Barcoe Jenks called Tom aside just before supper that evening.

  “I haven’t forgotten what I said to you about my diamonds,” he remarked, with many nods and winks. “I’ll show you how to make them, if you will help me. Did you ever see diamonds made?”

  “No, and I guess very few persons have.” replied the lad, thinking perhaps Mr. Jenks might not be quite right, mentally.

  The night passed without alarm, and in the morning, at the first blush of dawn, every one was astir, looking eagerly across the sea for a sight of the steamer.

  Tom had just come down from the wireless station, having received a message to the effect that a few hours more would bring the Cambaranian within sight of the island.

  Suddenly there was a tremendous shock, as if some great cannon had been fired, and the whole island shook to its very centre.

  “Another earthquake! The worst yet!” screamed Mrs. Anderson.

  “We are lost!” cried Mrs. Nestor, clinging to her husband.

  An instant later they were all thrown down by the tremor of the earth, and Tom, looking toward his wireless station, saw nearly half of the island disappear from sight. His station went down in collapse with it, splashing into the ocean, and the wave that followed the terrible crash washed nearly to the castaways, as they rose and kneeled on the sand.

  “The island is sinking!” cried Mr. Parker. “Make for the raft!”

  “I guess it’s our only chance,” murmured Captain Mentor, as he gazed across the water. There was no steamer in sight. Could it arrive on time? The tremors and shaking of the island continued.

  CHAPTER XXV

  The Rescue—Conclusion

  Down to where the small raft was moored ran Mr. Parker. He was followed by some of the others.

  “We must put off at once!” he cried. “Half the island is gone! The other half may disappear any moment! The steamer can not get here on time, but if we put off they may pick us up, if we are not engulfed in the ocean. Help, everybody!”

  Tom gave one more look at where his wireless station had been. It had totally disappeared, there being, at the spot, now but a sheer cliff, which went right down into the sea.

  The women were in tears. The men, with pale faces, tried to calm them. Gradually the earthquake tremor passed away; but who could tell when another would come?

  Captain Mentor, Mr. Hosbrook and the others were shoving out the small raft. They intended to get aboard, and paddle out to the larger one, which had been moored some distance away, in readiness for some such emergency as this.

  “Come on!” cried Mr. Fenwick to Tom who was lingering behind. “Come on, ladies. We must all get aboard, or it may be too late!”

  The small raft was afloat. Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Nestor, weeping hysterically, waded out through the water to get aboard.

  “Have we food?” cried Mr. Damon. “Bless my kitchen range! but I nearly forgot that.”

  “There isn’t any food left to take,” answered Mrs. Anderson.

  “Shove off!” cried Captain Mentor.

  At that instant a haze which had hung over the water, was blown to one side. The horizon suddenly cleared. Tom Swift looked up and gave a cry.

  “The steamer! The steamer! The Cambaranian!” he shouted, pointing to it.

  The others joined in his exclamations of joy, for there, rushing toward Earthquake Island was a great steamer, crowding on all speed!

  “Saved! Saved!” cried Mrs. Nestor, sinking to her knees even in the water.

  “It came just in time!” murmured Mr. Hosbrook.

  “Now I can make my diamonds,” whispered Mr. Jenks to Tom.

  “Push off! Push off!” cried Mr. Parker. “The island will sink, soon!”

  “I think we will be safer on the island than on the raft,” declared Captain Mentor. “We had better land again.”

  They left the little raft, and stood on the shore of the island. Eagerly they watched the approach of the steamer. They could make out hands and handkerchiefs waving to them now. There was eager hope in every heart.

  Suddenly, some distance out in the water, and near where the big raft was anchored, there was a curious upheaval of the ocean. It was as if a submarine mine had exploded! The sea swirled and foamed!

  “It’s a good thing we didn’t go out there,” observed Captain Mentor. “We would have been swamped, sure as guns.”

  Almost as he spoke the big raft was tossed high into the air, and fell back, breaking up. The castaways shuddered. Yet were they any safer on the island? They fancied they could feel the little part of it that remained trembling under their feet.

  “The steamer is stopping!” cried Mr. Damon.

  Surely enough the Cambaranian had slowed up. Was she not going to complete the rescue she had begun?

  “She’s going to launch her lifeboats,” declared Captain Mentor. “Her commander dare not approach too close, not knowing the water. He might hit on a rock.”

  A moment later and two lifeboats were lowered, and, urged on by the sturdy arms of the sailors, they bounded over the waves. The sea seemed to be more and more agitated.

  “It is the beginning of the end,” murmured Mr. Parker. “The island will soon disappear.”

  “Will you be quiet?” demanded Mr. Damon, giving the scientist a nudge in the ribs.

  The lifeboats were close at hand now.

  “Are you all there?” shouted some one, evidently in command.

 
“All here,” answered Tom.

  “Then hurry aboard. There seems to be something going on in these waters—perhaps a submarine volcano eruption. We must get away in a hurry!”

  The boats came in to the shelving beach. There was a little stretch of water between them and the sand. Through this the castaways waded, and soon they were grasped by the sailors and helped in. In the reaction of their worriment Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Nestor were both weeping, but their tears were those of joy.

  “Give way now, men!” cried the mate in charge of the boats. “We must get back to the ship!”

  The sea was now swirling angrily, but the sailors, who had been in worse turmoils than this, rowed on steadily.

  “We feared you would not get here in time,” said Tom to the mate.

  “We were under forced draught most of the way,” was his answer. “Your wireless message came just in time. An hour later and our operator would have gone to bed.”

  The young inventor realized by what a narrow margin they had been rescued.

  “The island will soon sink,” predicted Mr. Parker, as they reached the steamer, and boarded her. Captain Valasquez, who was in command, warmly welcomed the castaways.

  “We will hear your story later,” he said. “Just now I want to get out of these dangerous waters.”

  He gave the order for full speed, and, as the Cambaranian got under way, Tom, and the others, standing on the deck, looked back at Earthquake Island.

  Suddenly there sounded a dull, rumbling report. The whole ocean about the island seemed to upheave. There was a gigantic shower of spray, a sound like an explosion, and when the waters subsided the island had sunk from sight.

  “I told you it would go,” cried Mr. Parker, triumphantly, but the horror of it all—the horror of the fate that would have been theirs had they remained there an hour longer—held the castaways dumb. The scientist’s honor of having correctly predicted the destruction of the island was an empty one.

  The agitation of the sea rocked even the mighty Cambaranian and, had our friends been aboard the frail raft, they would surely have perished in the sea. As it was, they were safe—saved by Tom Swift’s wireless message.

  The steamer resumed her voyage, and the castaways told their story. Captain Valasquez refused to receive the large amount of money Mr. Hasbrook and Mr. Jenks would have paid him for the rescue, accepting only a sum he figured that he had lost by the delay, which was not a great deal. The castaways were given the best aboard the ship, and their stories were listened to by the other passengers with bated breath.