Before joining the others. Jack tried to get into communication with the _Sea King_ by wireless once more. But he failed. However, this did not worry them, as they knew that their friends must know where to find them. “I wonder when they’ll arrive here,” said Professor Chadwick, as they prepared to spend as comfortable a night as they could on the sand. “Those repairs were surely effected quickly,” he added. “Very quickly,” said Captain Andrews, who alone of the party had not been almost wild with delight at the prospect of the rescue. “By the way. Jack, you are quite sure that it was the _Sea King_ that you were in communication with?” “Of course,” rejoined the lad rather impatiently, “who else could it have been? Who would have had any object in trying to pass themselves off as the _Sea King_ unless they——” He stopped short and looked rather blank all of a sudden. The idea of Herrera had just crossed his mind. And then that ship that they had seen laboring in the stormy sea that afternoon? “Pshaw!” said the lad to himself; “she had two masts and a yellow funnel, there’s no chance of that being the _Tarantula_.” When he voiced this belief aloud later on, the others agreed with him. But Captain Andrews, still suspicious, determined, he said, to keep watch. The others, almost too tired to keep their eyes open, rather ridiculed this precaution, and soon sleep enwrapped every one on that desolate island. Every one? Yes; for tired nature had asserted herself and Captain Andrews, after a hard struggle to keep awake, dozed off, woke with a start, dozed off again and finally slumbered profoundly. Had he kept his eyes open a while longer he would have seen something approaching the island that would have caused him to keep awake with a vengeance. This object was nothing more nor less than the _Tarantula_, disguised cunningly by a canvas smokestack painted yellow, and two masts. Herrera early that day had ascended the river and heard of the flight of the prisoners and the destruction of his hemp-drying plant. Half crazy with fury he kept a watch on the skies and saw the Flying Road Racer, high in air as she was driven seaward after her perilous experience in the circular storm. In defiance of the wild weather he at once prepared to put to sea disguising his ship, as he had done on other occasions, as she dropped down the river. Me had seen the storm-racked air craft as she flew above him. He had observed her, in fact, at the very moment that the adventurers espied his tossing craft. To his chagrin, however, she passed out of sight. But he held on in the direction she had vanished determined not to give up the chase of those precious stones till he had exhausted every means of trying to obtain them.