FIVE tons of gold, worth about three million dollars, is not near so
hard to move as five tons of coal, for instance, especially when it is
put in seventy-five pound bars and there is plenty of tackle handy.
It took Jackson, Joyce, and Willoughby only about two hours to dump
the lead out of the submarine and replace it with the gold--surely the
richest ballast the world ever saw.
Meanwhile Howard, after stationing Dorothy and Mother Joyce in elevated
positions where they could watch for the possible approach of Forbes
and his men, had set to work to get the submarine into order, oiling
the machinery, testing the engines and all the various pumps and
motors, and finally starting the gas-engine, which discharged the
double duty of driving the boat while on the surface, and of charging
the electric accumulators for use below. All this took time, and was
not finished until after the last bar of gold had been stored away in
place.
Then Howard called the others around him. “Before we start,” he said,
“I have something to tell you. Until now I have kept it to myself,
because I did not want to rouse any false hopes. Joyce, did you ever
hear of wireless telegraphy?”
Joyce scratched his head. “And what’s that, sor?” he demanded.
“Telegraphy without the aid of wires. I didn’t suppose any of you here
had ever heard of it, else Captain Forbes would certainly not have shut
me in the operating-room of a steamer that had a full outfit in perfect
working order. During the time I was confined there I was in constant
communication with the naval station at Guantanamo. I told them of our
plight, and I will venture to say that the papers of the country are
ringing with the story of the Sargasso Sea colony and with our personal
adventures. Toward the end--just before Joyce set me free--I got into
communication with your father, Dorothy. He was wild with delight to
know that you were alive and was about to start to rescue you. In
fact, half a dozen vessels are probably now making an effort to break
a way through the weed to aid us. If we can get back to the coast and
wait, we are tolerably sure to be taken off sooner or later. Now, the
question is whether we shall wait or not?”
Joyce and his wife had listened in dazed silence. “Do you mane, sor,”
demanded the former, “that you can talk through the air with those
quare instruments in that little room?”
“That’s it exactly, Joyce. I can, and I did. But let me get back to
the point. I could give our friends only a very doubtful approximation
of our latitude and longitude, so that it may take them a long
time to find us, if they ever do. Not hearing further from us, they
may conclude that the whole thing is a fake and give up the search.
They will certainly have a long and tedious battle with the weed.
Altogether, if they get anywhere near the right spot in less than a
month it will be most surprising. Certainly they will not in less
than two weeks. Now, what can we do during the interval? If we decide
to wait for them, we must run down the coast and establish a camp
somewhere--as far from the village as we can get. Perhaps I can find
another wireless outfit and get into communication with Guantanamo
again. Certainly, we can find food and shelter, and all we will have
to do will be to wait--supposing that Forbes doesn’t find us, which he
will move heaven and earth to do when he finds we have his gold and his
boat.
“That is one alternative open to us. The other, of course, is to dive
under the weed and start for home at once. If we meet one of the
searching steamers, all right; if we don’t, we can get to port under
our own power. There is a risk about such an attempt, of course, but
I don’t think it’s a very great one. Now, this is the situation: what
shall we do?”
Howard paused, and the others looked at each other doubtfully.
Finally, Mr. Willoughby cleared his throat. “I confess,” he observed
hesitatingly, “that I fear the depths of the sea. I should much prefer
to remain on top of it and go home in a steamer. May we not run down
this--er--river on the surface and talk it over as we go?”
“Surely. That’s good sense. We’ll do it. Joyce, suppose you run up
on the galleon and take a last look for Captain Forbes. Meanwhile,
everybody else get aboard. Hurry, Joyce!”
Joyce hurried. In five minutes he came racing back as fast as his legs
would carry him. “The cap’n’s comin’,” he cried. “Coming with his
whole force. He isn’t three ships away.”
Howard smiled grimly. “Just too late,” he exclaimed. “On board with
you, Joyce! Quick! Off we go!” With the word, he cast loose the last
mooring, and the Seashark moved slowly away.
As, with gathering headway she rounded the galleon’s high-decked
poop, she came in view of a dozen or more armed men, who were rapidly
clambering over the wrecks, and who burst into excited babble as they
spied the little vessel. An instant later Forbes appeared.
“Curse you!” he shrieked. “I’ll get you yet.” He threw his rifle to his
shoulder and fired, his men following suit with a scattering volley.
But at the first sign of hostilities, Howard, who was alone on deck,
dropped nimbly down inside the body of the Seashark, and remained,
steering by aid of the camera lucida put there for the purpose, until a
curve in the channel sheltered the little vessel from the bullets that
had pattered harmlessly around her.
For an hour the Seashark dropped swiftly down the slowly widening
channel between ever-changing banks of massed ships. In that hour
she passed in review the shipping of more than two centuries.
Squat-bellied, round-bowed Dutchmen, high-pooped Spaniards, clippers
that had made the American flag famous, frigates shot-torn and
shattered in the American Civil War, deep-water ships still bearing
the indelible imprint of the Chinese trade, steamers old and new--one
by one they passed in a progression constantly growing more and more
modern. Howard, alone in the conning-tower, glanced at them with
wonder; never before had they so impressed him. Until then, nearness
had obscured the vastness of the ruin, and only now had the full
meaning of it all been hammered into his mind.
But he resolutely threw off the spell, and concentrated his entire
attention on the navigation of his little vessel. It was very
necessary. The channel, being newly formed, was reasonably clear of
weed, but it was impossible to guess how soon its character might
change. The smallest patch of vegetation might foul the screw of the
Seashark, or might conceal a water-logged spar, floating just awash,
that would rip a plate from her bow and send her to the bottom, ending
at once the lives of the castaways and their dreams of fortune. In some
ways it would be safer beneath the water; yet Howard knew that every
turn of the gas-engines was aiding to store up power in the electric
accumulators, on which alone they must depend when the time came to
dive. He did not dare to go below an instant sooner than he must.
After an hour the channel opened more rapidly, and the weed began
to thicken, showing that the edge of the wreck-pack was near. Soon
the accumulation grew so thick that it was no longer safe to push
through it. Howard glanced at the indicators that measured the power
accumulated. “Enough to run us three and a half hours,” he murmured,
“or perhaps four. At eight knots, that means about twenty-five miles of
distance. Twenty-five miles! Humph! I guess it’s safe.”
He brought the boat to a stop, and spoke to those in the semi-darkness
below.
“Well,” he queried, “have you decided? Is it go ahead, or land and
wait?”
No one answered, and in the stillness he heard up-channel the far-off
chug-chug of a boat rapidly driven. “Humph!” he exclaimed, bending down
again. “Forbes seems to have been well supplied with boats. He’s after
us in a steam-launch. That settles the question definitely. We’ve got
to dive. If any one wants to take a last look at this marvellous place,
now is the time.”
No one spoke.
Howard laughed. “What!” he exclaimed. “Nobody? Joyce, don’t you want
to see the last of your old home?”
Joyce shook his head. “Faith,” he answered, “I’ve seen enough of it to
do me for the rest of my life.”
“Jackson?”
“New York’s good enough for me.”
“Mr. Willoughby?”
The missionary looked up. “Man! Man!” he cried. “How can you think of
such things when we are about to plunge into uttermost peril of our
lives? Rather, let us pray.”
“Pray by all means, Mr. Willoughby. More things are wrought by prayer
than this world dreams of, you know. Dorothy, don’t you want to look?”
But Dorothy, too, shook her head. “No, Frank,” she answered. “I never
want to see the horrible place again.”
“Then down we go. Here comes Forbes, by the way.”
Around a curve, up-channel, appeared a steam-launch, still far off, but
rapidly approaching. Howard stood up and waved his hand sarcastically;
then, with rapid motions, snapped on the manhole cover, cut off the
gas-engine, and threw on the electric starting-lever. Then, as the
little vessel started forward, he turned the diving-rudder downward.
Instantly the Seashark slid gracefully down beneath the ripples. From
her little turret sprang out a sword of white light that pierced the
water before her, while within a score of tiny bulbs illumined the
darkness. Down she went; down, down, till the gage at Howard’s hand
showed that a depth of fifty feet had been attained; then slowly he
shifted the diving rudders until the boat held steadily to her depth,
the rudders just balancing her tendency to rise to the surface. “All
set,” he called down cheerily, but without moving his gaze from the
front. “Nothing to do now but go ahead. Make yourselves comfortable. We
won’t come to the surface for three hours, and perhaps longer.”
No one answered. The experience, utterly new to them all, was
sufficiently terrifying to destroy the desire for conversation. Shut
up in this tiny shell which might any moment prove their tomb, fifty
feet below the surface of the ocean, driving forward blindly into
the unknown, it would have taken one braver--or more callous--than
any there to make merry. Howard, used as he was to submarine work,
might have cheered them up, had he not been compelled to give all his
attention to driving the vessel.
For the dangers, though not what the rest vaguely conceived, were by
no means imaginary. Let the Seashark rise a few feet above the level
at which she ran, and she might easily smash herself against a more
than ordinarily deeply sunken wreck. Let her plunge too deeply, and
the increased pressure of the water might force its way in at some
weak spot, and crush her like an egg-shell. Let her power give out
too soon, at a spot where she could not come to the surface to run
her gas-engine, and so replenish her accumulators, and they would all
perish miserably. On Howard rested all the responsibility, and he had
no time to give to anything else.