Then came the order to reverse and then “stop” once more. Jupe, with a line in his hand, leaped for the accommodation ladder. Tom, emerging on deck, took in the situation in a glance and made for the stern. He hurled another line, which was caught from above. In as short a time as it takes to tell it, the _Vagrant_ was snugly moored alongside her larger consort. Jack, with his head in a whirl, stepped from the bridge. Tom was at his side in an instant. “Is all well with Uncle Chester?” he demanded impatiently. “Is he on board?” “No, he isn’t,” came the staggering reply, in a voice that was half a sob. It was a bolt from the blue that had assailed the lad, and who will blame him for being utterly unnerved by the blow fate had just dealt him. Tom was silent for an instant. Tidings that stun have a way of sinking in slowly. Then, as the two lads stood at the foot of the ladder, he flung his arm around Jack’s shoulder, and from his gritted teeth came speech: “If harm has come to him. Jack, those who have caused it will have to pay—_and pay big!_” And so the two lads ascended the ladder to the _Sea King’s_ deck, followed by the awe-struck Jupe. CHAPTER VI—NED BANGS’ STORY It was Ned Bang’s, the boyish wireless operator of the _Sea King_, who met them at the head of the ladder. Behind him pressed a ring of curious faces, the bronzed countenances of seamen. Some incandescents had been switched on as the newcomers gained the deck, and in the yellow light Jack saw that all the faces that gazed into his bore the unmistakable stamp of agitation. Bangs, besides being the wireless operator of the _Sea King_, was something more. He had been a pupil of Professor Chadwick’s and a school fellow of Jack’s, and was quite a scientific adept along the lines he had chosen to follow. But Jack and Tom exchanged merely hasty words of greeting with the youngster who stood facing them, pallid-faced under his coat of tan and shaken evidently by some recent shock. “What is it, Ned? What has happened?” demanded Jack eagerly, as soon as the boys had clasped hands. “Where is father? Why are you out here alone?” “It’s—it’s a long story. Jack,” half-stammered Ned. “I—I’m afraid that we who are here on board don’t show up to very good advantage in it. But you must be the judge of that. Shall we go below, where we can talk?” There was a reticence, a hesitancy in his tones that irritated Jack, overwrought as he already was. “I asked you a question, Ned,” he said in sharp tones, very unlike his usual affable ones, “where is my father?” “I saw him last near Yucatan,” burst forth Ned miserably. The reply was so utterly unexpected that it fairly took Jack and Tom off their feet. Ned had not seen fit to supplement his statement, but stood there with that same shamefaced expression playing over his visage. “And you—you left him behind there?” broke out Jack, guessing part of the truth.