A DIVE FOR SAFETY.
As Bob was the last one to lose his senses, so he was the first to
recover. And here again his superior endurance must have scored in
his favor. Always in the pink of physical condition, and striving
constantly to keep himself so, his powers of recuperation were quick to
react and reassert themselves.
He sat up, dazed and bewildered, and was some moments in picking up the
chain of events where it had been dropped.
By degrees he lived over the events that immediately preceded his lapse
into unconsciousness, and thoughts of the treacherous Ah Sin brought
him staggering to his feet.
The _Grampus_ was yawing and tumbling about in the waves, completely
at the mercy of wind and currents. Seizing the wheel, Bob brought
the submarine to her course and lashed the wheel with his twisted
handkerchief.
Pausing by the foot of the ladder he looked up into the conning tower.
The hatch was open.
What had become of the Chinaman he asked himself. Had he, confident
that the boat would be blown up, gained the deck and thrown himself
into the sea? Bob had heard of fanatics of that sort--carrying out
orders given by a higher power and then immolating themselves on the
altar of what they supposed to be their duty.
The Japs were noted for self-sacrifices of that kind, and Ah Sin was
not a Chinaman, but a little yellow man from the land of the mikado.
How long Bob had remained unconscious he had no means of knowing.
Resolved to discover what had become of the supposed Chinaman at all
hazards, Bob climbed laboriously up the ladder. The cool, salt air,
pouring down the hatch, served still further to revive him and bring
back his strength.
At last, when he braced himself in the opening and was able to cast a
sweeping glance over the waves, the sight unrolled before him brought a
startled exclamation to his lips.
A cable’s length from the submarine was a dory manned by smartly
uniformed yellow sailors. Hove to, half a dozen fathoms beyond the
dory, was the steamer with the black funnel and the red band, her port
rail lined with figures that were evidently watching the _Grampus_.
Between the dory and the submarine was a swimming figure, which Bob had
little difficulty in recognizing as being that of Tolo, otherwise Ah
Sin.
Tolo was swimming and looking behind, and the eyes of those in the dory
were on the _Grampus_, the men at the oars turning their heads to look
over their shoulders.
It seemed plain that they were expecting an explosion, and that they
were hurrying to get Tolo out of the way of it.
Bob’s blood ran cold as he thought of the heinous plot that had so
nearly been carried out by the disguised Japanese. Policy was back of
the murderous plan, but was it a policy dictated by a powerful nation,
or merely by a set of misguided men, acting on their own accord?
The young motorist had no time to debate this point. A shout of
consternation greeted his appearance at the conning-tower hatch. The
officer in the dory spoke to his men, and all turned their faces the
other way and bent their backs to the oars.
It flashed over Bob, in a twinkling, that the crew from the steamer
were still of the opinion that they could destroy the submarine, and
that they were hastening to get aboard the craft in order to carry out
their nefarious designs.
Without losing a moment, Bob drew back into the tower and closed and
barred the hatch. Lurching down the ladder he called desperately to his
companions. Speake and Dick were sitting up, staring blankly at each
other. When Bob appeared they fixed their bewildered eyes on him.
“Wake up!” cried Bob, springing to Dick and shaking him vigorously.
“Get your wits together, Dick, and be quick about it.”
“There was dope in that coffee,” mumbled Dick.
“That’s right,” seconded Speake, rubbing a hand across his forehead.
“Never mind that now,” went on Bob hurriedly. “Enemies are upon us!
That steamer you saw in the periscope, Speake, is hove to a little way
from us, and our motor is slowed until we have scarcely steerageway.
A boat is coming toward the _Grampus_, and we shall be boarded before
you can say Jack Robinson. We’ve got to make a dive for safety. Rouse
yourselves, both of you! To the motor, Dick! Speake, attend to the
tanks--fill them for a twenty-foot submersion. You----”
Something struck against the side of the submarine, and a jar followed
as of some one springing to the deck. “There they are!” shouted Bob.
“Below with you--quick!”
Speake and Dick got unsteadily to their feet. Bob’s ominous words
alarmed them, and did more than anything else to clear the fog from
their minds. Making their way stumblingly through the door, they
lowered themselves down the hatch.
Several more ringing thumps on the deck proved to Bob that others had
come aboard. Presently there was a banging on the hatch cover.
“Open!” cried a muffled voice with a queer foreign intonation. “Open so
that we can talk!”
“Who are you?” roared Bob, his voice sounding like thunder in the
confined space.
“Young Samurai, patriots of Nippon, Sons of the Rising Sun, Independent
Protectors of the Kingdom. Open!”
Bob forced his way up the ladder again. Slant eyes were pressed against
the lunettes and met his.
Already, however, water was entering the ballast tanks, and the
_Grampus_ was beginning to settle.
“Our flag is the Stars and Stripes,” yelled Bob, shaking his fist at
the eyes on the other side of the thick glass, “and you dare not lay a
hand on us! If your mikado knew what you were about----”
“Our mikado knows nothing,” interrupted a voice. “We----”
The fact that the submarine was diving came suddenly home to those on
the deck. Already the waves were creaming over the curved plates, drawn
into a flurry by the suction as the boat went down.
The eyes disappeared from the lunettes, and the Japanese scrambled for
their boat. Another moment and the conning tower was submerged and Bob
could hear the waters gurgling over the hatch cover.
Sliding down to the periscope room he looked into the periscope.
Some of the sailors were in the water, and others, in the boat, were
desperately busy getting them aboard. For a moment only Bob was able
to use the periscope, and then the waters closed about the ball, the
valves protecting the ball from the inrush of water closed, and the
_Grampus_ was more than fifteen feet down.
“Twenty feet, mate!” came the voice of Dick.
“That will do, Speake,” called Bob.
The tanks were closed.
“Drive her ahead, Dick!” cried Bob.
The motor was speeded up and the _Grampus_ hustled onward below the
surface. While Bob unlashed the wheel and brought the boat more
directly into her course, a loud boom and a splash were heard.
“What’s that?” demanded Speake.
“The steamer is firing at us,” answered Bob.
“Let ’em shoot,” laughed Dick. “A heap of good it will do them to drop
shot into the sea.”
“How’s Gaines, Dick?”
“Coming along full and by, forty knots. He’s sitting up and beginning
to take notice.”
“How about Clackett, Speake?”
“He jest asked me to tell him where he was,” replied Speake, “so I
guess he’ll soon be able to take hold.”
“Good! We’re coming out of this a whole lot better than I had dared to
hope.”
“Dot’s righdt,” spoke up Carl, coming suddenly to a sitting posture.
“How do you feel, old chap?” asked Bob.
“I peen lying dere on my back trying to guess id oudt,” Carl answered.
“That’s about the way with me, Mr. Steele,” said Glennie, turning over
on his side so he could face Bob. “Where are we?”
“We’re twenty feet down and headed for the delta of the Amazon, Mr.
Glennie.”
“Didn’t you lose consciousness, like the rest of us?”
“Yes; but I wasn’t out of my head so long. I was the last to go and the
first to come to.”
“How do you account for that?”
Glennie sat up on the locker, as he put the question, and began rubbing
his head.
“I didn’t drink so much of that bitter coffee as the rest of you did,”
replied Bob.
“That’s right,” muttered Glennie; “I was forgetting about the coffee.
It was drugged--it must have been.”
“Yah, so helup me!” growled Carl. “Der Chinaman vas oop to some funny
bizness, und he has peen efer since he come apoardt der boat. Ve ought
to haf droon him oferpoard on cheneral brinciples.”
“Where’s Ah Sin now?” queried Glennie, looking around the room
expectantly.
“The last I saw of him,” said Bob, “he was in the water swimming toward
a small boat.”
Glennie started to his feet, astounded.
“In the water?” he echoed. “Do you mean to say you allowed the
scoundrel to get away, Mr. Steele? And all the time you knew just how
much his presence meant to me!”
Bob gazed fixedly at the ensign.
“Your head must still be troubled with that dope the supposed Chinaman
put in the coffee,” said he calmly. “It was lucky that I was able to do
what I did, and, as for the Chinaman getting away, I could no more help
that than any of the rest of you. But it was a lucky thing for us that
he _did_ get away, I can tell you that.”
“Vat bizness you got finding some fault mit Bob Steele?” snapped
Carl, making a truculent move in Glennie’s direction. “You vas a
bassencher--don’d forged dot--und Bob vas der skipper. Ve ought to call
him gaptain, only he von’t allow id; but, all der same, he iss der
gaptain oof der boat, und you vill keep schtill oder I vill pat you on
der back mit mein fist. Yah, so, Misder Glennie!”
“That will do, Carl,” said Bob. “Draw back into your shell now, and
keep still yourself. I can handle my own end with Mr. Glennie.”
Carl flung off to the other side of the room, tramping heavily to show
his impatience and disgust.
“I presume,” said the ensign reflectively, “that you did the best
you could, Mr. Steele, so I have no fault to find with you. But you
understand that Ah Sin was my only hope for locating those important
papers in Para.”
Bob stared, wondering if Glennie had forgotten the discovery he had
made just before he had lapsed into unconsciousness.
“I had a mighty queer dream about that Chinaman,” pursued Glennie. “I
thought you had a fight with him, Bob, and that, during the scuffle,
his old slouch hat came off, and the queue along with it. And I was
under the impression that Ah Sin wasn’t a Chinaman at all, but Tolo,
that rascally Jap.”
“That wasn’t a dream, Mr. Glennie,” answered Bob, “but is literally
what took place.”
“Is that a fact?” cried the ensign.
“Look ad here vonce!” called Carl.
He had picked up the slouch hat and the attached queue and placed them
on his head.
“Great Cæsar!” muttered Glennie, reeling back against the wall. “How
I’ve been fooled! And I never recognized the scoundrel in his chink
make-up! Well, I guess I deserve all the bad luck that’s coming my
way. I’ve been a dunderhead ever since the _Seminole_ dropped me in La
Guayra.”
“Whoosh!” exclaimed Carl disgustedly, pulling off the hat and pigtail
and throwing them into the locker. “I don’d like der shmell oof der
t’ings.” He dropped the locker lid and turned away. “Vat’s dis, hey?”
he inquired, picking up the bomb.