THE FIVE CHILIANS.
The five rescued men were swarthy and undersized. All were barefooted
and bareheaded, and clad only in coarse linen shirts and dungaree
trousers. They were a dejected-looking lot, and seemed hardly able to
realize, as yet, that they had been saved.
The injured man was still lying on the locker, while his mates were
sitting up around the sides of the periscope chamber and leaning back
against the steel walls.
"Who are you?" inquired Matt, seating himself on one of the low stools
with which the room was supplied.
Four pairs of eyes were turned on him blankly, then three pairs swerved
to the largest and heaviest man of the lot, who appeared to be the
leader.
"_No sabe_," said this individual.
Matt had picked up a little Spanish while he was in Arizona, but he
did not feel that it was sufficient to enable him to hold an extended
conversation with the rescued men.
"Unlimber your Spanish, Glennie," said he, "and translate it as you go
along. I know something of the lingo, but not enough."
Thereupon the following passed between the ensign and the spokesman for
the five, all being translated as the conversation proceeded:
"Who are you?"
"We come from Valparaiso, Chili, but have been at Sandy Point (Punta
Arenas) in the strait for a week."
"What is your business?"
"We worked in the quicksilver mines, but left the mines to ship on a
guano boat that was going to the Falklands."
"How did you happen to be at Sandy Point?"
"The guano boat proved unseaworthy. Her seams opened in the strait, and
while we were feeling our way along toward Sandy Point her boilers blew
up. Some of us got ashore and made our way to Sandy Point."
"Then, after that, how did you happen to get wrecked?"
"There was no work for us in Sandy Point, so we hired a small sailboat
and were going to the River Plate. The squall struck us, and our boat
went over on her beam ends. The owner of the boat was swept into the
sea and drowned, but we managed to get on the boat's bottom, and tied
ourselves there. We had given ourselves up for lost when you came to
our aid. We are grateful to all of you, señors."
There was no reason why Matt and his friends should not believe the
Chilian's story, and they accepted it exactly as given.
"Tell them, Glennie," said Matt, "that we are not going into the
Atlantic, but around into the Pacific. Ask them what they want to do."
Glennie gave the Chilians the substance of this, and their startled
looks aroused Matt's surprise.
"They say," went on Glennie, repeating the spokesman's words, "that
they do not want to go to Sandy Point or to any port in Chili. They
want to know how far north we are going along the Pacific coast. If we
are going as far as Peru they would like to travel with us."
"Dowse me!" muttered Dick. "We haven't room for them aboard. They'd
only be under foot, say nothing of consuming our fresh air and making
an inroad on the stores."
"Why don't they want to go to Punta Arenas?" asked Matt.
Glennie put the question, and all four of the Chilians began to
expostulate excitedly, while the wounded man redoubled his groans.
Finally, when the clamor died out, the spokesman answered as follows,
his words being faithfully translated by Glennie:
"They say they were suspected of being mixed up in a Chilian
revolution, and that if they are landed at any Chilian port they will
be arrested and shot."
"Py shinks," grunted Carl, "I hope dot ve ain'd going to have
somet'ing more to do mit refoludions. I hat enough oof dot oop in
Cendral America."
"We all did," seconded Dick.
"We're not going to be caught in any more revolutions," declared Matt.
"These Sons of the Rising Sun are giving us plenty to think about. I
hadn't intended to stop at Punta Arenas, but we'll have to put in there
long enough to leave these men. If they don't want to take chances in
the town, we'll leave them outside. The injured man we'll take with us,
and do our best to look after him. Tell them, Glennie, that that is all
we can do."
"And it's right, too," declared Dick. "We can't run the risk of getting
into trouble on account of the revolutionists when we've got so much at
stake. Why didn't these Chilians explain about the revolution business
at the first? It looks like they were keeping something back."
Glennie's announcement was received with black looks and hearty
objurgations in the Spanish tongue, but gradually the four men settled
down to a sulky attitude which did not look promising.
"They're a grateful lot, I must say!" scowled Dick. "Look at 'em,
mates. And to think that we risked our lives to pull 'em in out of the
wet!"
"It don't make any difference who they are, Dick," returned Matt. "In
rescuing them we did only our duty, and that's something we can chalk
up to our credit. We've got to work through the three hundred and sixty
miles of this strait just as quick as we can. We've sent that other
boat around the Horn, and if we don't reach Smyth Channel ahead of her,
all our trouble will go for nothing. The fact that we shall have to lay
up nights makes it all the more necessary for us to travel at top speed
by day. All these men will go ashore at Punta Arenas--the injured man
into the bargain. There must be a hospital in the town, and he can be
better taken care of there than here."
Glennie repeated this ultimatum, and the looks of the spokesman
underwent a change. The sullen expression faded from his swarthy face
and he began speaking volubly.
"He says," reported Glennie, "that he is very sorry if he and his
companions have put us to any extra trouble. They will go ashore at
Punta Arenas--for they would rather be captured and shot, although they
are innocent men, than to inconvenience us. If it hadn't been for us,
he says, they would all have been dead men, anyway."
"That's the spirit," approved Matt, "although I don't think, if they
are really innocent, that any harm will happen to them."
Just then Speake came in with tin plates heaped with food, and with
tin cups of steaming coffee. He had to make several trips below, but
finally all were supplied and fell to eating.
The Chilians devoured their food more like famished animals than human
beings, casting aside the knives and forks and using their fingers, and
gulping down the hot coffee as though it had been ice water.
"They eat like cannibals," remarked Dick.
"Vat a safeageness!" exclaimed Carl. "Dey act like dey don'd haf
nodding to eat for a mont'."
Even the injured Chilian used his left hand and went at his food with
the frantic haste shown by his comrades.
"They'll do," rumbled Dick. "You couldn't kill 'em with a meat axe.
That chap on the locker has forgot all about his broken arm."
When the Chilians had emptied their plates they clamored for more.
"We haven't any more," said Speake. "I cooked just enough and made an
equal division all around."
Glennie explained to the Chilians, and once more they looked resentful;
but, as before, their faces finally cleared and they resigned
themselves to the situation. Matt emptied some of his food upon the
plate of the injured Chilian, and without so much as a _gracias_ (thank
you) he devoured it with fierce celerity.
"We'll have to let them sleep in the steel room with you, Glennie,"
said Matt, when the meal was done and the eating utensils cleared away.
"You've got a revolver and you can watch them. It may not be necessary
to have a guard, but it will be just as well. Some one of us will keep
awake in this room--Gaines can put in a two-hour watch, then call
Speake. Speake can call Clackett, and Clackett can call Dick. I'll
follow Dick, and by that time, I hope, it will be light enough so we
can start through the strait. We must take advantage of every hour of
daylight."
Matt's orders were immediately carried out. The four uninjured Chilians
were shown into the room abaft the periscope chamber, and the injured
man was left on the locker. Carl and Matt went down into the torpedo
room, and Dick, Clackett, and Speake sprawled out in the tank room
and motor room. Gaines, in pursuance of orders, went on guard in the
periscope chamber.
Matt, being dog tired, was asleep almost as soon as he lay down on his
blankets. Carl was tired himself, but he would have liked to talk a
little, in spite of that. As Matt slipped off into slumber under his
first remark, the Dutch boy had to go to sleep.
All was quiet in the boat, save for the ventilator fan humming softly
in the motor room and sending fresh air throughout the steel hull.
No matter how wildly the gale howled over the surface of Possession
Bay, thirty feet down in its depths all was quiet and serene.
When Matt was awakened, it was by a wild yell echoing weirdly through
the vessel. At first he thought he had been dreaming, and he sat up, in
the Stygian blackness of the torpedo room, and listened in bewilderment.
A moment more and he knew that what he had heard was not a dream. The
boat, poised on the ocean bed, rocked with the frantic movements of
some one in the periscope room.
"Vat id iss, Matt?" came the voice of Carl through the darkness.
"Give it up," answered Matt. "Switch on the light, Carl, so we can see
what we're about."
Carl could be heard getting to his feet and groping for the electric
switch. Presently the torpedo room was flooded with light and Matt
rushed for the open door in the bulkhead.
Just as he reached it, a revolver exploded in the tank room, and a
bullet whizzed past his head and struck the torpedo tube.
Matt paused only a moment. He knew that the Chilians were up to some
rascally piece of work, and that it would stand him and his friends in
hand to get busy without delay.