“Wow!” cried Herc from the conning-tower; “how the bees hummed.”
Luckily this was all the damage the bullet did, though they could hear
it strike one of the after plates with a ringing sound. A grim look
came over Lieutenant Parry’s face.
“See here, my man!” he hailed. “You’d better heave to, and look sharp
about it.”
“Aw, run along and play,” came the derisive answer; “we ain’t got time
to monkey with you little gasolene fellows.”
“They haven’t seen yet that we are a submarine,” whispered the officer
to Mr. Lockyer; “let’s have some fun with them. They think we are only
some cheeky little launch.”
The inventor was nothing averse to giving the rascals a good scare,
and accordingly, amid a torrent of profanity from the schooner’s rail,
the party that had occupied the deck crawled inside the conning-tower.
The manhole was clamped down and everything prepared for a dive. The
lieutenant took the wheel, as in case of any accident happening he felt
that the responsibility should rest upon him. But he didn’t intend any
accident to happen if he could help it.
Down shot the submarine obediently, as her forward tanks were filled.
She was submerged till she was about ten feet under water, and then run
straight ahead on an even keel.
“I guess we are about ready for our surprise party now,” announced the
lieutenant, who had gauged the distance as accurately as he could.
“Strong, you get ready to throw that manhole open when we bob up to the
surface; we’ll give those fellows a good scare.”
Click!
The mechanism to bring the little vessel up was put into operation,
and so strongly were the pumps set to work that she bobbed up from the
depths like an empty bottle. The schooner had before lain on their
starboard hand. Her dark outlines now showed up to port. They had
traveled completely under her.
“Now then, give them a hail!” ordered the officer.
“Schooner, ahoy!”
It was given with all the power of the united lungs of Ned, Herc, old
Tom, and Sim.
The occupants of the submarine were almost doubled with laughter at
the puzzled, confused uproar that then ensued on board the schooner.
Evidently, there were several men on board her.
“There’s that pesky launch again,” came a voice through the night;
“give ’em another shot, Bill.”
“Where in blazes are they,” was the indignant response, as Bill
evidently peered in the direction in which the submarine had last been
seen.
“I’m going to run in alongside and board her,” whispered the
lieutenant, taking advantage of the excitement on board the sailing
vessel. “Do you hear, on deck there?”
“Aye, sir,” responded Ned; “we’re all ready.”
“Then look out. Stand by to jump on board when I give the word. Don’t
stand for any nonsense. I’ve an idea those fellows have been up to some
mischief. At any rate, a schooner that carries no lights and whose crew
open fire on anyone who inquires her business, has only herself to
blame if she is held up.”
“I’ll take the wheel,” volunteered Mr. Lockyer, as they crept closer
and closer to the schooner. They were now on the lee side of the craft,
and the slight leeway she was making was bringing her down upon them.
Her crew, apparently, were all busy looking off to the weather quarter,
trying to make out some sign of the launch that had so mysteriously
vanished.
“Strictly speaking, I suppose,” said the naval officer, as he and
Midshipman Stark joined the others on deck, “strictly speaking, I guess
we’ve not much right to board that fellow, but--here goes!”
As he spoke the steel side of the diving vessel grazed the side of
the schooner for an instant. Before the others were aware of what he
intended to do, Lieutenant Parry had caught at the sailing vessel’s
shrouds and swung himself aboard.
At the same instant, by a stroke of ill luck, the wind hauled round,
and the awkward schooner yawed off till quite a space separated the
submarine from her. Now, it is a curious thing that up to that moment
not one of the party had realized that there was not a weapon on board
the Lockyer.
“Not even a bean-shooter,” wailed Herc.
“There’s a butcher knife in the galley,” chortled Ned.
In the excitement, they had forgotten this utterly, and now Lieutenant
Parry stood alone on the schooner’s deck, unarmed and facing desperate
men. True, they could get alongside again in a moment, but if the crew
of the schooner was numerous and well armed, it was likely that they
might have a tough time in boarding her.
“Bother the luck!” grunted Midshipman Stark; “lay alongside again, will
you, Mr. Lockyer. It may not be too late yet.”
Noiselessly as before, the submarine crept through the water, once
more nearing the side of the sailing craft. But as they hauled closer
and closer alongside, an unlucky stumble of the beleaguered officer
upset a tin baling tub. The unusual noise brought one of the schooner’s
men to the lee side. Instantly he saw the approaching submarine.
Leveling a rifle he carried, he was about to fire at the huddled group
on the deck when the lieutenant, springing out from behind a cask where
he had been crouching, caught the fellow a blow on the jaw that sent
him sprawling backward. Like a flash, the naval officer leaped forward,
seized the fellow’s weapon, and before any of the schooner’s crew
realized what had occurred, he had the weapon leveled.
[Illustration: Noiselessly as before, the submarine crept through the
water, once more nearing the side of the sailing craft.]
As they came for him in an angry, growling rush his voice rang out hard
and sharp as tempered steel.
“Stop where you are. The first man who moves is going to get hurt.”
“Consarn it,” grumbled one of the men; “whar did you come from?”
“From the bottom of the sea,” was the reply, for the officer could
afford to joke just then, having the situation well in hand. How long
he could have kept it so is doubtful, for their first surprise over,
the schooner’s crew, numbering some half-dozen hard-looking characters,
began to rally.
“Go on and rush him, boys,” snarled the fellow who had been knocked
over. “I only had one shot in that rifle, anyhow, and it’s ten to one
he won’t hit anybody.”
He kept prudently in the background, however, and none of the others
seemed inclined to “bell the cat” at that moment, at any rate. By the
time they had made up their minds to commence an attack, the submarine,
which had sneaked up swiftly in the excitement, was close alongside.
Another instant and four active figures leaped from her decks into the
schooner’s rigging.
To the officer’s surprise, for he was well aware that there were no
weapons on board the Lockyer that night, each figure held in its hand
a gleaming object, apparently a pistol. They held them leveled at the
crew, whose demoralization was now complete. Some of them beat a
retreat into the little cabin astern, among them the fellow who had
been at the wheel. Her helm deserted, the little schooner came up into
the wind with a great flapping of canvas, fell off again, came up once
more, and so on for several minutes.
Two men alone offered any resistance. One of these was the man who
had been about to fire at the submarine’s crew when he had perceived
her hauling alongside. His valor vanished, however, when he saw the
gleaming weapons of the attacking party.
“You’ve got us,” he said; “I’ll throw up my hands.”
“You are a wise man,” remarked the officer dryly. “Strong, oblige me by
tying up that fellow. Now then, sir, how about you?”
Putting the question in a ferocious voice, the officer whipped round
on the other man who had seemed prepared to put up a fight. He was a
short, squat man, with a bunch of iron-gray whiskers on his chin. His
little eyes glittered savagely, but he, like his comrade, saw that it
was no use to resist.
“Reckon you kin tie me, too,” he said. “You’ve got us dead to rights.”