TURNING THE TABLES.
How Carl had managed to release himself Matt did not know, and he was
too busy, just then, to spare time to ask. The leader of the Chilians,
leaning out into the narrow passage, lifted the revolver with the
intention of firing it at Carl. The position of the fighters did not
give the man the chance he wanted--but it did give Matt an opportunity
of which he was not slow to take advantage.
While the face of the Chilian was turned, the young motorist leaped at
him and clasped him about the neck with his arms. There was no head
room in the passage between the engine room and the tank room. In order
to get through it a person had to go down on his hands and knees and
creep.
Matt caught the leader of the Chilians just where a step downward led
from the passage into the engine room--the farthest point aft in the
boat.
The swarthy rascal gave vent to a yell, shouting something to the
two men above. As Matt pulled him backward and downward, Dick rushed
forward and lent his aid.
"Fine-o!" panted Dick, gripping the hand that held the revolver and
wrenching the weapon away. "We're turning the tables quicker than I
ever thought we'd be able to do. It's a main lucky thing Carl was left
in the torpedo room. Quiet, you treacherous swab!" Dick added to the
fiercely battling Chilian. "Stop your fighting or I'll put a bullet
into you."
"Give me the revolver, Dick," said Matt, "and I'll take care of him.
You go and lend Carl a hand."
Carl was having a hard time of it. The Chilian was not large, but hard
labor in the penal settlement of Punta Arenas had developed his muscles.
Carl, at the bottom of the hatchway leading up to the periscope room,
was doing his utmost to bear the Chilian down in the passage leading
to the tank room. He was on the rascal's back, throttling him with his
hands, and trying to force him forward.
The man, holding the harpoon point up, was jabbing with it over his
shoulder. It was a dangerous instrument, and if Carl had been struck
fairly with the lance-like point, he would surely have been badly hurt.
"You t'ought you hat got der pest oof Modor Matt, hey?" Carl was
whooping as he continued compressing his fingers about the brown throat
and gave no attention to the harpoon. "Vell, you got some more t'oughts
coming. I peen Modor Matt's chum, und I vas a rekular horned ven I got
my mad oop--a yellow chacket mit some stingers, yah, so! Vy don'd you
fall mit yourseluf? Vy don'd----"
Just then the point of the harpoon ran through Carl's hair, raking his
scalp.
"Shdop id, oder I vill shdrangle you!" Carl cried.
The Chilian, so to speak, had got the range. He was breathing in
choking gasps, but he still had strength enough to stand upright, and
he was preparing for a backward thrust with the harpoon, which might
have won the day for him had not Dick interfered.
At the critical moment Dick seized the fellow's arm and wrenched it so
severely that the harpoon fell clanging to the steel floor. The next
instant the boys had the Chilian down.
"Get a rope, Carl!" puffed Dick. "I can hold him while you're doing it.
Better get two ropes--one for Matt to use."
Carl darted into the torpedo room, and was soon back with the ropes.
They were the same ones that had been used to secure him and Matt.
"Durn aboudt iss fair blay," chuckled Carl. "Der ropes ve use on dem
vas de vones dey use on us! Ach, vat a habbiness!"
The man was quickly bound, and Carl and Dick crept on to where Matt was
threatening the leader of the treacherous clique with the firearm.
"You and Carl can take care of the fellow, Dick," said Matt. "I'll
leave you and go up to the periscope room. There's no telling what's
been going on there."
"Slant away, matey," said Dick. "Carl and I can handle this dago, with
ground to spare."
"You bed you!" echoed Carl; "ve can take care oof all der tagos on der
poat."
Matt waited for no more, but crawled back to the ladder and hurried to
the periscope chamber. What he saw from the door alarmed him. Glennie
was lying on the floor, and the two other Chilians were nowhere to be
seen.
"Glennie!" shouted Matt, rushing forward.
Glennie lifted himself on one elbow and gave the young motorist a
bewildered look; then abruptly his brain cleared and he realized what
had taken place.
"All right, Matt," said he. "As soon as that row was turned on below I
was knocked over. Cæsar, what a thump I got!" Glennie sat up and lifted
both hands to the back of his head. "What's going on?" he asked.
"We've captured the two villains who were below with us," Matt
answered. "What has become of the other two?"
"Give it up. My wits went woolgathering the minute I dropped."
Matt ran to the door of the steel room and tried it. It was locked.
"Hello, out there!" came the voice of Speake. "What's all the
excitement about?"
"We've captured the boat back again," replied Matt.
"Hooray!" exulted Clackett. "Let us out, Matt."
"As soon as I find the key." Matt turned to Glennie. "Who did you say
had the key?" he asked.
"One of the two who were here with me," said Glennie. "They must have
gone up on deck."
Matt sprang to the iron ladder and mounted swiftly to the hatch. The
hatch was open and the morning sun was streaming down. The moment he
got his head through the opening, he saw a sight that still further
increased his alarm.
At least a dozen canoes were in the bay, arranged in a circle at a good
safe distance from the _Grampus_. The boats were constructed of rough
planks rudely tied together with the sinews of animals. There were four
warriors in each canoe; small, fierce little men wearing cloaks of the
sea otter and with faces like those of baboons. The warriors were armed
with bows and arrows, and in each canoe the small fighters had their
bows in hand with an arrow laid to the string.
Matt recalled what Glennie had said just before Carl made his attack on
the Chilian with the harpoon. Evidently this flock of canoes had been
in the bay, the warriors intent upon some nefarious expedition, when
the _Grampus_ lifted herself to the surface of the water.
This apparition, emerging from the depths of the bay, must have filled
the superstitious natives with panic. They had fled, Matt reasoned, but
had plucked up heart when the monster had failed to attack them and had
drawn closer.
In grim silence the warriors surveyed the youth. They made no attempt
to attack, but watched with glittering eyes, their steel-pointed arrows
ready.
"That's a layout for you!" came the voice of Glennie from below. He
was looking into the periscope, and had as good a view of the canoes
and warriors as Matt had himself. "Don't let them get a whack at you,
Matt," the ensign cautioned. "They're a treacherous lot of savages,
and many a good ship they have coaxed to her doom by lighting fires on
shore in stormy weather. It was those false beacons that gave their
land the name of Terra del Fuego--the Land of Fire."
"I thought the country was named that because of the habit the natives
have of carrying fire with them to keep them warm."
"Some say one thing and some another, but----"
"No use debating that question now. What I'd like to know is where have
those other Chilians gone?"
"Can't you see them? They're beyond the canoes in a boat of their own,
and pulling ashore."
The periscope ball, being fifteen feet above the deck of the _Grampus_,
afforded Glennie a wider view than Matt had from the top of the tower.
Matt climbed higher up the ladder and looked shoreward over the heads
of the savages in the canoes.
He saw the two Chilians. They were in one of the rough boats and
getting hastily toward the shore of the bay.
"How do you suppose they ever managed to get that canoe and pass
through the circle of Fuegans?" asked Glennie. "Why, the savages are
not even chasing them!"
"Probably," guessed Matt, "the Fuegans thought the Chilians were
visitors from the bottom of the sea, inasmuch as they came out of the
boat, and were afraid to molest them. But we're not going to let the
scoundrels get away so easy as all that."
Stepping back down the ladder until his fingers could touch the
steering device and the bell pushes, Matt rang for full speed ahead.
The jingle of the bell reached the Fuegans, and perhaps gave them the
idea that this monster of the deep was making ready to do battle with
them. Dropping their bows, they seized their paddles and shot their
canoes to a safer distance.
The churning of the propeller still further alarmed the savages, and
when the submarine headed shoreward, pointing straight for one segment
of the canoe-draw circle, there was a wild scramble among the boats to
get out of the way.
The Chilians, looking over their shoulders and seeing the _Grampus_
pursuing them, redoubled their efforts to get away. But they would not
have succeeded had not the Fuegans unexpectedly changed their tactics.
Whiz-z-z--zip! An arrow flashed past Matt's head.
"Come down, Matt!" shouted Glennie. "If you don't they'll put one of
those arrows through you! It's a wonder that one missed."
Matt needed no second bidding. Emboldened by the attack of the first
savage, all the others prepared to launch their shafts.
As Matt dropped into the tower and closed and secured the hatch, a
veritable cloud of arrows came pecking at tower and deck, some of them
gliding off into space, and some of them splintering and breaking upon
the tough steel.
Matt continued to remain in the tower, his eyes at the lunettes and his
hand on the steering device.
Any further attempt to chase the escaping Chilians was only a waste
of time. Even if the _Grampus_ overhauled them it would have been
impossible for those aboard to get out on deck and effect a capture.
Their canoe might have been run down and destroyed, but that would
merely have thrown the convicts into the water, where they would have
been drowned or pierced with the sharp-pointed Fuegan arrows. Rather
than have the Chilians slain, Matt chose to let them get ashore and
take their chances on dry land.
The Fuegans, however, had no intention of giving up their attack. When
Matt vanished below the conning-tower hatch, they divined instantly
that he was afraid of their arrows. He could be no god of the ocean's
depths if a Fuegan arrow frightened him. Reasoning in this primitive
fashion, the savages gave vent to loud cries and urged their canoes
toward the submarine from all sides.