A SUBMARINE PICKPOCKET
"Good morning, Mr. Thacker; I hope you feel like taking a walk on the
bottom of the sea this morning."
The smiling face of Captain Austin greeted Jay as the latter climbed up
through the forward hatch of the _Nemo_ for a breath of the clear fresh
morning air. The _Nemo_ had arrived during the night at her destination
and rode gracefully at anchor on an easy swell.
"Never felt better in my life," answered the Brighton boy. The two
lads had enjoyed a fine night's rest even in the cramped quarters of
a submarine. Pretty soon Dick came climbing on deck, throwing out his
chest for an inhalation of the clear balmy ozone.
The _Nemo_ was riding slightly offshore. Because of her light draft she
had been enabled to go very close. The pounding of the surf could be
plainly heard.
"You see those ships' ribs sticking out of the water directly
alongside?" asked the captain, pointing off the starboard quarter of
the _Nemo_.
Both boys followed the line of direction. A glass was not necessary,
for there, not more than thirty or forty yards away, loomed the three
gaunt curved ribs of a ship, clearly outlined against the white of the
breaking rollers beyond.
"That's what's left of the _Dominion_," explained the captain. "Not
many people know she's here; we're quite a bit out of the regular
shipping lines; but that's her all right."
Jay was thrilled at the spectacle. Right there under the water reposed
valuable treasure, and he the one who was to dip down deep to clutch it
from the depths!
"Expect that ship is pretty well battered to pieces, but have every
reason to believe the real booty is still intact," Captain Austin was
saying, as several deckmen began dragging various diving paraphernalia
on deck.
The chief executive turned to Jay.
"I want you to go down this morning, if you are feeling fit and fine,
Mr. Thacker."
Jay indicated he was quite ready and never felt better in his life.
"This chap Weddigen is also going down," continued Austin.
Jay held his tongue, having learned well the lesson of discipline
in the navy. Although he distrusted the fellow and knew he nursed a
personal grudge, Jay was determined to make the best of the situation.
Dick was to remain on board the _Nemo_ and supervise Jay's air and
signal lines. Knowing quite well by his long experience that it was
foolhardy for a diver to eat but a very little before descending into
the pressure of the depths, Jay drank only a glassful of orange juice
and a cup of black unsweetened coffee.
By nine o'clock final preparations for the descent were under way.
Jay was going off the forward deck of the _Nemo_, and Weddigen was to
take off from aft the conning tower. The huge unwieldy diving suit,
the clodhopper shoes of iron, the ghoulish looking headgear with its
grotesque looking eyes were ready to be donned. The _Nemo_ was anchored
to the lee shore of the island; the water was comparatively quiet and
there seemed little danger of the "life lines" becoming unmanageable.
"Gee, wish I was going along," sighed Dick a bit wistfully.
Jay grinned. "Never mind, old pal; you'll get your turn all right
before this is over. I'll stay my limit, probably not find anything,
and then they will send you down."
Captain Austin called Jay and Weddigen together amidships to give them
their last instructions. With a stub of a pencil he drew a plan of the
wreck as near as he could estimate it from the previous reports of
other divers and the ship's owners.
"The ribs sticking out of the water yonder are supposed to be forward
of the room where the treasure was stored," he told them. "It is
reported that the diamonds are in a small iron safe that was kept
in the captain's cabin. The bullion was in iron chests also in the
captain's cabin."
He indicated on the rough map where the strong boxes were supposed to
lie.
"When the _Dominion_ ran for the shore," he continued, "she was afire
aft and amidships. She struck the sand so hard she buried her nose
in the soft ground, and those ribs you see were planted so solidly
that the surf was never able to beat them down. You ought to find the
captain's cabin about twenty paces aft of the ribs."
Jay examined the crude sketch long and hard, asking many questions to
make as sure of his ground as possible. Weddigen scowled and guessed
how he would "jes prowl around until he found it."
"Go ahead then, boys, and get in your togs," ordered the captain.
With Dick's assistance Jay was soon ready to go over. The suit securely
fastened on to make sure there were no leakages anywhere that would let
in water, he sprawled on a deck chair while Dick put on the ponderous
twenty-pound shoes that were to help anchor him down. Soon the helmet
was adjusted on to the breastplate and the thumb screws set. The
eye-pieces were hinged like a ship's porthole windows and not closed
until the very last minute.
As Jay was ready for the finishing touches Dick leaned close and peered
into the face of his old chum.
"All right, old boy," he comforted. "I'll be right here on this end
keeping close watch. If anything happens just give me the emergency
quick. And, for the love of Mike, keep your googley-eyes on that bird
Weddigen."
Jay smiled, an answering "Yes," and motioned for the eye-pieces to be
closed. Immediately the air pump was started, feeding its supply of
fresh oxygen to the imprisoned diver. With a man on each side of him
Jay scuffed across deck and went over the side on a ladder leading down
into the water. Just before his helmeted head went under he took one
last look around for direction and fixed in his mind the path to be
taken in the journey toward the _Dominion_.
Down he went. The sun shone into the water, and with the sand for a
background the light in the sea was fairly good.
"Well, here we are--and now for the _Dominion_," Jay chuckled to
himself as his feet hit bottom and he started along, using a small
peak-nosed shovel as a push-pole to help himself along.
Through his bull's-eyes he could see ahead some distance. Vainly he
cast right and left for some trace of Weddigen, but nowhere was his
diving companion to be seen.
"I'll just be careful not to run afoul of that big boy's lines down
here," Jay told himself. It was not so easy to defend against an attack
of any kind under water clad in heavy diving habiliments.
Groping his way forward steadily inch by inch, Jay figured soon he must
be in the neighborhood of those ships' ribs. The breathing was good and
the air lines were working fine under the expert direction of his chum.
These two had teamed together before; always when one of them was down
the other looked after the equipment above deck, keeping a sharp eye
on the air pump to see there was no let-up in its functioning.
Pretty soon Jay saw something looming up directly ahead. For the moment
it assumed fantastic shape and the youth was unable to determine
whether it was just some sort of an apparition or some tangible
substance. But only for a moment.
In another instant the specter of the wrecked ship filtered through the
greenish haze of the water into the eyes of the groping diver; a weird
spectacle that danced and eddied to the tilt of the waters like the
wavering film of a cinematograph.
"By George! there she is," gasped Jay to himself in sheer delight. In
spite of his accustomed self-complacency and cool nerve the youth found
his pulses fluttering wildly.
"And now to get busy," he murmured to himself, picking his way
laboriously over a sand hummock. The sea muck was so loose that the
young diver's ponderous shoes settled deep into it at each stride. But
the water was clear and the precious oxygen was coming to him in steady
relays from the _Nemo's_ pump.
"What could have become of that chap Weddigen?" speculated Jay as he
strained through the windows of his eyes for some trace of the other
diver. Not a hint of him in any direction.
At last the youth came to the side of the wreck. His sense of direction
and implicit obedience to instructions had carried him right. He had
arrived directly where the nose of the _Dominion_ had imbedded itself
in the sand.
"Good enough," he thought, as he gazed upward to where the torn timbers
lifted themselves toward the surface of the sea. One glance indicated
that the _Dominion_ lay listed slightly to port in such a slanting
position that her bow was elevated at something like an angle of thirty
degrees.
Groping his way along the side of the old freighter the persevering
young diver found to his great delight that the tides and deep water
currents had banked in sand all along the side of the _Dominion_. Like
a pillow ridge this sand supported the weight of the lost cargo-carrier.
"This makes it all the easier; I can walk right aboard without any
formalities," laughed Dick as he dropped to his hands and knees. He
figured it would be easier going "doggey" fashion than to attempt to
walk up the side of the incline and run the risk of sinking deep into
the fluid underfooting.
Cautiously he made his way forward. And now the giant proportions of
the ship's superstructure were outlined against the green background.
The three wide smokestacks loomed ominously in front of him pitched
at an angle where they seemed tottering to their fall. The main mast
forward with its crow's-nest still intact was poked out like a weird
totem pole bereft of all rigging by reason of the lashing given it by
the submarine currents.
In a few minutes Jay worked himself up close to the wounded hulk. He
could see he had come alongside directly abaft the forward funnel.
"Things seem to be breaking right, for I am right off the particular
spot where I want to go aboard," soliloquized the youth as he paused to
adjust his air lines.
A port hole eyed him directly in front. Jay was minded to step into the
enclosure and thus raise himself into a position where he could grasp
the twisted deck rail and pull himself aboard. He endeavored to thrust
his right leg into the opening but found the distance too great for the
weight of his iron shoe, with the pressure of water against it. Just
at that moment his attention was attracted by two oblique lines drawn
sharply across his line of vision against the background of the ship's
funnels.
"What in the world----"
And then it dawned on him. Weddigen was already aboard. The lines were
his air and signal lines.
"Beat me to it, I guess," was his mental comment. This made him only
the more determined to get into that cabin at all hazards.
Signaling that he desired to be raised a bit in the water Jay waited
until he had been hauled up four or five feet. As his body came abreast
of the ship's rail he grasped it firmly with one hand and signalled
sharply with the other to stop. It was easy work to clamber over the
rail.
And now for the captain's cabin! Groping his way forward along the
deck from state room to state room, maintaining his footing on the
sloping incline by grasping the battered woodwork, he came at last to a
companionway leading below. It was just aft the pilot house, and this,
he surmised, was the way to what had once been the quarters of the
_Dominion's_ skipper. It was necessary to go slowly and surely, for
well this young diver knew the danger of entangled air lines.
As he drew a powerful submarine flashlight from his belt and touched
its illumination spring the life lines of his fellow diver brushed his
helmet.
"Weddigen got the jump on me, sure enough," he thought.
Floundering along as carefully as he knew how, the Brighton boy let
himself down the companionway on the rickety stairs. It was ticklish
business. At any moment the air lines might be fouled by the swaying
currents and the diver have to fight for his life or perish of
suffocation.
"But if that big bully Weddigen can do it, I can do it," he assured
himself.
By now he was conscious of a faint glow of light in the subaqueous
chamber more remote than the pencil rays of his own flash. This, he
figured, was the light of Weddigen. A slight turn to the left and he
stepped into the erstwhile domain of the _Dominion's_ chief executive.
Through the blur of water a startling picture was unfolded before his
eyes. Crouched over a square iron chest, playing the rays of his
flashlight over an iron strong box, was the figure of a diver. The
cover of the chest had been pried off. The diver was transferring the
contents of the chest into a long narrow slit of a pocket that bulged
from the side of his diving armor!