AN EXPLOSION IMPENDS
There was now no chance to avert the explosion of the time bomb within
the coal barge. On the appointed time it would go off as arranged
and unless the mechanism by some freak of luck refused to work; but
the chances on this score were few indeed. The mechanism represented
the very latest scientific thought and the bomb was essentially for
submarine work of this character.
"Looks, chum, as though we were in for the fireworks," smiled Dick, who
was as cool as though he were standing on the twenty-five yard line at
Brighton waiting for the ball to be passed for a try at a goal from the
field.
Jay had not yet given up hope of getting the _Nautilus_ moving, or of
escaping from her in some way. He looked at his watch. Little more than
a minute until the bomb would go off!
"Why in the name of sense don't they start the engines of the
_Jules Verne_ and back her away from the barge?" he ejaculated in
consternation. By moving the _Jules Verne_ the _Nautilus_ also would be
moved.
"Didn't you hear Larry say there was a breakdown in the engine room of
the _Jules Verne_ that was the cause of the whole trouble?" put back
Dick, who was by far the more self-possessed of the two.
Slowly Jay shook his head in affirmation. Memory had fled with the
rapid flow of events of the last quarter of an hour. Was it any wonder
his senses reeled? Two youths completely trapped in a diving chamber
that was poised directly over a coal barge in which a high explosive
time bomb was set to go off now at any time!
There was a chance, of course, that the detonation might not be severe
enough to damage the _Nautilus_. The bomb might explode outward or
downward instead of spending its energy upward under the keel of the
diving bell. In that event the shock might not be sufficient to rend
the seams of the light steel chamber in which the Brighton boys were
crouched awaiting the inevitable crash. If--but no one could tell under
circumstances like these just what would happen.
"If we could only get into the air-lock we would be farther away from
the explosion and less likely of being bashed up," said Jay as he
looked toward the exit chamber.
"Yes, and if we could get into the air-lock we could get out into the
access tube," added Dick.
Steadily they gazed into each other's eyes. Jay held his own watch
in his hand, while Dick at intervals looked at the tiny steel clock
behind a wire socket on the side of the _Nautilus_. By the rays of an
incandescent bulb Dick could see that the minute hand had just turned
twenty-seven minutes after one o'clock.
Tick by tick the clock was measuring off the few seconds that remained
until the time bomb in the coal bunker underneath was scheduled to go
off. Like two men sentenced to die before an enemy firing squad the
Brighton lads stood facing each other in the diving compartment. Just
the trace of a smile showed over their faces. They clenched hands in a
firm grasp.
"In half a minute more----"
The jingling of the telephone bell jarred the stiff silence and stirred
the boys from their stupor. As though hypnotized, they had stood
awaiting the finish, not thinking of any further movement calculated
to free them from their predicament. They had figured everything that
could be done for their rescue having been thought of, or tried out.
But now the jangle of the telephone receiver, Jay moved to take it
off the hook and as he did so his right foot struck the pin that held
the aquascope in position. When the pin was removed the trapdoor, or
aquascope as they called it, opened upward of its own accord on an
air-cushion that worked on the principle of a door cushion.
And that was what happened at this particular moment in the _Nautilus_.
The aquascope opened upward, leaving the limpid waters of the Sound
purling at the very feet of the two boys. Just for a second the boys
recoiled in horror, thinking now they were in greater danger. With the
door open there was more chance of the force of the explosion below
being felt within the _Nautilus_.
Dick sprang to close the aquascope in the few seconds that remained
until the explosion. But imagine his surprise when Jay intercepted and
hurled him away from the trap.
"Quick, chum, follow me," cried Jay in wild acclaim.
The opening of the aquascope had given the youth an inspiration. Yes,
he would do it. It was a last desperate chance, but there was no reason
why it would not work if carried out in time.
Even as Dick started back in consternation when thrust from the
aquascope Jay literally leaped feet first into the aquascope as though
he were jumping into a miniature swimming pool. Down he went until his
feet struck at last on the deck of the coal barge. In this position he
stood in water up to his chest, with his head and shoulders still in
the _Nautilus_.
"What are you going to do?" gasped Dick. He had failed yet to grasp the
significance of his chum's quick move.
"Dive out of here and take my chances on shooting up to the surface,"
came the instantaneous reply.
Then it dawned on Dick. What his chum intended doing was to let himself
out of the _Nautilus_ through the trap door, dive free of the salvage
chamber and shoot up to the surface. And why not? They were down about
eighty-five feet, and they were accustomed to the pressure of that
depth since the pressure in the _Nautilus_ had had to be equal that
of the water outside in order to open the trap safely. A sickly grin
spread across the Brighton youth's face. Why hadn't either he or Jay
thought of that before?
"Come on, Dick, follow me," urged Jay, and almost before the words
escaped his lips he quickly took a full inhalation into his lungs, gave
one last look at his chum and ducked down head first into the waters of
Long Island Sound through the open trap of the _Nautilus_.
Like some weird specter in a motion picture drama Dick beheld the
spectacle at his feet. First he saw Jay's head under the water; then he
saw his chum flatten out under the bottom of the _Nautilus_, and as he
looked again he could faintly make out Jay's feet as they faded away
from the darker expanse of the barge deck below. Jay had cleared the
_Nautilus_ safely.
"Here goes, too," gasped Dick to himself as he leaped through the
aquascope. Almost instinctively as he let go, his eyes lifted to the
tiny marine clock in its basket-like cage. Right on the half hour
mark showed the minute hand. With a last frantic gasp for breath
Dick pulled himself down into the embrace of water. Down out of the
_Nautilus_ into the embrace of water and into such close proximity with
that infernal coal bomb!
"If I can only hurl myself--quickly--to--one--side--before----"
Just then the bomb exploded with a frightful force that rent the
waters of the Sound in that particular locality with the force of an
earthquake. In the midst of this maelstrom were the two Brighton youths
who had taken a last desperate chance when it seemed they were doomed
to die like rats in a trap.
What--Where----!!!
* * * * *
Up on the deck of the _Jules Verne_ there was the maddest confusion. It
had maintained for nearly half an hour, since the chief engineer had
first reported trouble from below. Frantically, members of the crew
were endeavoring to make the necessary repairs. In the meantime, every
one knew by now of the perilous position of the two Brighton boys who
had been working for some time in the _Nautilus_.
"My God, man, we've got to get those boys up somehow!" raved
Superintendent Brown as he paced the deck.
Captain Austin, his face tense with anxiety, was directing the knot
of men who were endeavoring to string up again a set of cables that
ran down along the access tube and connected under the _Nautilus_.
Fortunately, the captain had seen the break coming just before the
steel parted and the severed ends had been held before they had dropped
overboard.
Watch in hand, Captain Austin was keeping tabs on the time limit until
the bomb in the coal barge was scheduled to go off. Eagerly the captain
had scanned the bay in every direction for some other vessel that might
stand by and give them help. But not a craft showed anywhere close,
not even a sailboat. Unfortunately, the _Jules Verne_ had not as yet
been fitted out with wireless, and there was, consequently, no way to
communicate ashore or with any other vessel.
"How are you coming, boys, on those cables?" Superintendent "Montey"
Brown kept inquiring every minute or so of the repair crew.
They were making progress, but it was slow work. Splicing was no easy
task, especially with steel wire. If brand new cables could be run out
it would be a much easier proposition; but that was out of the question
with the _Nautilus_ on the bottom of the Sound over the coal barge
eighty-five feet under water. And there were no diving suits as yet on
the _Jules Verne_ for just such emergency cases as these.
"Tell them to keep a stout heart," Captain Austin reminded Larry
Seymour several times, who was at the telephone and signal booth
connecting with the _Nautilus_.
Larry in turn reported that he could not always get a reply from below.
"Probably they are trying some way to worm their way out," suggested
Larry, who was nearly beside himself with worry for his two old pals.
Poor old Jay and Dick! They had been such good friends for so long. Was
it possible now that some disaster was to overtake them?
It was while Larry was thus painfully reviewing the possibilities of
the next few minutes that Captain Austin suggested to the boys in the
_Nautilus_ that they try and put the time bomb in the coal barge out of
commission. Eagerly the would-be rescuers on the _Jules Verne_ awaited
developments.
"It can't be done now, for we have moved away from the opening in
the deck of the barge a yard or so," had been the answer sent up by
Jay after the two imprisoned Brighton youths had inspected the barge
through the aquascope of the _Nautilus_.
Well, the only chance hope of rescue now, it seemed, depended on
getting the cables spliced and the winches winding before the bomb was
detonated. Like beavers the deckmen of the _Jules Verne_ were exerting
themselves. It was a fight for two lives, and the men of the _Jules
Verne_ were spending themselves to the limit.
"How much time remains?" asked Superintendent Brown after what seemed
an eternity of tugging with the torn cables.
In turn he was told that less than five minutes remained. By the
clock in the chart house of the _Jules Verne_ it was just twenty-six
minutes after one. And Jay had sent up word that the bomb was set for
one-thirty!
As a last resort Captain Austin called for volunteers and asked that
they dive from the deck of the _Jules Verne_ as the bomb was exploded
in the coal barge and see whether they could find any trace of the two
Brighton boys in the water, or learn whether or not the _Nautilus_
had been ripped open wide by the force of the explosion. A half dozen
stepped forward, and the captain asked them all to be ready.
"Stand by the telephone and try to get them so soon as the explosion
goes off, for they may not be hurt at all," were Larry's orders. With
receiver glued to his right ear he sat awaiting the crash.
Just then the foreman in charge of the cable repairs reported that he
could commence to wind in another half minute.
"Tell Thacker and Monaghan we are going to raise them now by the cables
and to keep a stiff upper lip down there," commanded Austin.
Larry buzzed and buzzed, but in vain. No answer came from the interior
of the _Nautilus_. What had happened? Larry was frantic as he pushed
down hard and harder on the button.
"Look!" cried one of the crew forward as he pointed off the starboard
bow of the _Jules Verne_ at an object that had just shot up out of the
water. It was the head of a man!
As members of the crew of the _Jules Verne_, with Superintendent Brown
and Captain Austin in the lead, swarmed to the side of the ship there
came an upheaval from beneath and a tremor that shook the old boat from
stem to stern. It was as though a geyser had let loose directly under
the new diving ship.
"The bomb! It has exploded!" Larry Seymour, his face ashen white,
sought anew to get a telephone communication with the two Brighton boys
whom he loved so dearly.
But even as he despaired there came a welcome cry forward.
"Thacker! It's Thacker! He escaped unharmed from the _Nautilus_."
But where was Dick?