I was also aware of the fact
that the sending apparatus of the Toreador's wireless equipment was
sealed, and that it would only be used in event of dire necessity.
There was, therefore, nothing to do but wait, and we waited.
We discussed the manuscript and hazarded guesses concerning it and
the strange events it narrated. The torpedoing of the liner upon
which Bowen J. Tyler, Jr., had taken passage for France to join
the American Ambulance was a well-known fact, and I had further
substantiated by wire to the New York office of the owners, that
a Miss La Rue had been booked for passage. Further, neither she
nor Bowen had been mentioned among the list of survivors; nor had
the body of either of them been recovered.
Their rescue by the English tug was entirely probable; the capture
of the enemy U-33 by the tug's crew was not beyond the range
of possibility; and their adventures during the perilous cruise
which the treachery and deceit of Benson extended until they found
themselves in the waters of the far South Pacific with depleted
stores and poisoned water-casks, while bordering upon the
fantastic, appeared logical enough as narrated, event by event, in
the manuscript.
Caprona has always been considered a more or less mythical land,
though it is vouched for by an eminent navigator of the eighteenth
century; but Bowen's narrative made it seem very real, however many
miles of trackless ocean lay between us and it.
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