A DIVE FOR LIBERTY.
Carl fell over the top of the conning tower, descended the rounded deck
with one hand clinging to a wire guy, and reached out over the water.
"Schust a leedle vay farder, bard!" he cried encouragingly. "Shvim a
leedle fasder! Der fellers on shore iss pooty glose!"
Glennie was first to clasp Carl's outstretched hand, and, with its
assistance, to reach the deck; then Glennie, dripping wet, laid hold of
another guy and bent down to give a hand to Matt. Carl assisted Dick up
the sloping deck at the same time.
By then the soldiers were almost upon the wharf. Sudden flares lit the
night, and each flare meant the explosion of a gun.
"Quick!" cried Matt, "get below. We're in the right, but those fellows
don't know it yet."
Carl pushed Dick toward the conning tower. The sailor was loath to be
the first to seek safety, but hesitation on his part only blocked the
way for the others. Down Dick went, Carl close after him. Then Glennie
took a dive through the hatch, and had no more than cleared the way
before Matt followed.
Flashes were shooting up in the darkness all along the wharf. Leaden
hail pattered on the steel sides of the _Grampus_, but the stout iron
merely gave a ringing laugh and flung the softer metal off.
An unexpected event happened just as Matt ducked below the hatch. The
propeller, working against the pull of the anchors, suddenly took a
grip and hurled the _Grampus_ ahead.
Carl had set the rudder for a move toward the wharf. It was in that
direction, therefore, that the boat plunged, thus carrying those aboard
nearer their enemies. Matt grabbed the tower steering device just in
time to turn the craft. So narrow was the margin that the rounded side
of the hull brushed the wharf timbers as the boat swept by.
This gave the soldiers a chance to do some shooting at close range;
it likewise gave them a chance--for the fraction of a minute--to jump
aboard, but no one improved the opportunity. Another minute and the
submarine was headed out into the strait.
"Take the wheel, Carl, until I get down," called Matt.
"Dot's me!" boomed Carl from below.
Matt closed the hatch and descended to the periscope room.
"Stop the engine, Gaines!" he called through the tube. "Fill the tanks,
Clackett!" he added.
"Hooray!" came from Clackett as the splash of water echoed from the
filling tanks. "It's good to hear your voice again, Matt. How far down
are we going?"
"Till we touch bottom. There's where we're to pass the night."
The bottom was reached at forty feet. Clackett announced the depth as
the _Grampus_ came to a rest.
"We're forty feet from all the military and naval forces of Punta
Arenas," said Glennie.
"But it's forty feet of water," added Dick, "and, even if those ashore
knew where we were, it would puzzle them some to get at us."
"We're safe enough," said Matt. "In the early morning we'll rise
until we show just the periscope ball and will start for the Pacific.
Now that there's nothing particular for all hands to do, let's be
comfortable and find out how it all happened."
"You're the cause of it, matey," declared Dick.
"I know that, of course. If I hadn't been held a prisoner by Captain
Sandoval, there wouldn't have been any need of you and Glennie taking
all those chances to rescue me. What I mean is, what suggested such an
audacious proceeding?"
"You did," persisted Dick.
"Explain how?"
"Why, when you landed from the war ship, you stood up there on the
wharf and defied this Captain Sandoval. It was Motor Matt's defiance
that suggested to me a plan that was a little more comprehensive. You
had defied Sandoval, so why couldn't the three of us defy all the
Chilians in the town? Well, we did, didn't we? And we got clear with
whole skins, every one of us."
"I can hardly believe it possible," muttered Glennie.
Dick turned on the ensign.
"You had as big a finger in the pie as any one," said he, "and you took
the foolhardy risk like a whole man. I like you better this minute,
John Glennie, than I ever thought I could. Toss us your fin!"
Glennie looked surprised, then a pleased look crossed his face and he
reached forward and caught the young sailor's hand.
"If I've won your friendship by that piece of work, then I've had a
double gain," said he.
"Vat in der vorld," chimed in Carl, "dit dose fellers shpeak to you
like you vas a tog for? Und arrest you und keep you apoardt der var
ship? I hat id all fixed oop in my mindt to put a dorpeto indo dot
gruiser oof she ditn't led you go."
"It isn't very clear to me yet," answered Matt, "what I was made a
prisoner for. Garcia started the trouble for me----"
"He said he would, you remember," put in Glennie.
"Yes, and he carried out his threat as soon as he got on the deck of
the war ship. He told one of the officers that he had hired me to take
him and his friends out of that sailboat in the _Grampus_, and that I
had lost my courage and was heading for Sandy Point with them."
"You don't mean to say that this Captain Sandoval believed that?" cried
Glennie.
"He professed to," answered Matt. "I was to be held in Punta Arenas
until Garcia's yarn could be verified, which, the captain said, might
take a week or two. The American consul, and the British consul, the
captain also told me, were both out of town for a week----"
"Which is a fact," spoke up Glennie. "Dick and I went ashore to see the
two consuls, and were informed, at their residences, that they had gone
into the interior for a week."
"Then I owe Captain Sandoval an apology," said Matt, "for I doubted his
word."
"Vell, he owes you some abologies, too, don'd he?" asked Carl.
"Well," smiled Matt, "a few."
Matt got up and turned off the electric light that flooded the
periscope room.
"What's that for?" asked Dick.
"The light might shine through the lunettes and be reflected up to the
surface," was Matt's answer. "I just happened to think of it."
"Well you did, Matt!" exclaimed Glennie.
"There was something else that Captain Sandoval told me," went on Matt,
"which had to do with the Jap steamer."
"What was that?" came the questioning chorus.
"Why, at the time we were doing our wireless work from Gallegos Bay,
the war ship _Salvadore's_ wireless apparatus was not working. Sandoval
discovered, from the station at Punta Arenas, that, at that very time,
the station was communicating with a ship which claimed to be the
_Salvadore_."
"It was the Jap steamer, eh?" put in Dick.
"Yes. You see, our second-hand machine wasn't powerful enough to
communicate with Punta Arenas nor to receive messages from there; but
the Jap steamer was closer, and so we exchanged messages with her. But
the Japs were able to communicate with the Punta Arenas station, and
the Chilians thought it was us. At least, that is what Captain Sandoval
said. I couldn't explain without getting us into more trouble with the
Sons of the Rising Sun, so I kept quiet."
Matt cut short the general comment by declaring that he was tired, that
they were perfectly safe from pursuit, and that he was going to sleep.
All the rest were of the same mind, and presently the echoes of the
excited voices had died out, and only sounds of deep and peaceful
breathing disturbed the silence that reigned within the _Grampus_.
Matt was astir at five o'clock the next morning, and went around waking
his friends.
"We must get an early start," he explained, "so all take your stations
quietly. We are still off the town, remember, and we shall have to come
close enough to the surface so that our periscope ball will be free of
the water and show us the course. If the red ball should be seen as it
glides over the water, we might have trouble, so we must proceed as
warily as we can."
With Matt at the wheel and the periscope table, Gaines and Dick in the
motor room, Carl and Clackett in the tank room, and Speake working at
his electric stove in the torpedo room, the ballast tanks were slowly
freed of a part of their watery load. Matt, watching the periscope,
signaled to Clackett to stop unloading the tanks just as the reflected
image of the surface appeared in the mirror.
"How is everything, matey?" queried Dick through the speaking tube.
"The _Salvadore_ is within twenty fathoms of us," replied Matt, "but
everything is quiet. Full speed ahead, Gaines," he added. "We'll not
come to the surface until we're several miles nearer Smyth Channel."
With all the machinery working smoothly, the _Grampus_ glided as softly
as a huge fish away from the dangerous port of Punta Arenas, the red
periscope ball alone showing, and flashing a crimson trail in the
direction of the Pacific.