ANOTHER ATTACK.
This weird vanishing on the part of the object in dispute between Motor
Matt and Captain Pons left those on steps of the Casa gasping. The
Frenchman dropped limply down and hugged his folded arms to his breast;
the Chilian looked wild, and a superstitious fear arose in the eyes of
the two negroes. Glennie grabbed up the glasses the captain had been
using a few minutes before, clapped them to his eyes, and proceeded to
examine the surface of the bay.
The strange movements of the torpedo had had something of an effect
upon the _Grampus_, for she had swung about on her cable and dipped
slightly sternward. She was lying quietly enough now, however, and
Carl, Dick, Speake, Gaines, and Clackett were swarming over her deck
and evidently wondering what had become of the Whitehead.
Matt, with his naked eyes, could see his friends moving about, although
it was impossible for him to discover exactly what they were doing.
"They're pulling in the rope that was made fast to the torpedo," said
Glennie. "They've got the end of it in their hands."
"Great spark plugs!" murmured Matt dazedly. "That was a queer
performance, I must say. Can you see anything of the Whitehead,
Glennie?"
"Not a thing. There must have been some compressed air still left in
the cylinder, and in some way it got to the screws."
Matt shook his head.
"That's not it, Glennie. Even if the Whitehead's screws had begun to
work they couldn't have caused the big tube to dance around in that
unheard-of fashion. I----"
Matt, with a sudden alarming thought running through his mind, started
down the steps at a run. The Frenchman shouted something. Taking his
cue from Captain Pons, the Chilian also shouted. Probably it was a
command for Matt to halt, but the young motorist did not construe
it in that way. Pons, himself, had said that there was no cause for
the arrest of Matt and Glennie, and Motor Matt believed that he was
perfectly free to go wherever he wished. Just then he was tremendously
eager to get aboard the _Grampus_.
One of the old-fashioned pistols went off with a _bang_ like a small
cannon. A lead slug screeched through the air well over Matt's head.
"Come back, Matt!" yelled Glennie. "If you don't, the next bullet may
come closer to you."
Matt faced about indignantly.
"What are they shooting at me for?" he demanded.
"They don't want you to get away, just yet."
"But I've got to get away! We must get aboard the _Grampus_ as quick as
the nation will let us. Can't you understand this business, Glennie?
That French submarine is in the bottom of the bay! The Japs are
recovering that torpedo! You know why they want it, as well as I do."
"Jupiter!" exclaimed Glennie, "I hadn't thought of that. But you'd
better come back here, Matt, while we explain the situation to Captain
Pons. It's better to have him and the captain of the port for friends
rather than enemies."
"Every minute's delay makes the position of the _Grampus_ just that
much more dangerous. Carl, Dick, and the rest don't know a thing about
this other submarine, and if the Japs made an attack on our boat, while
she's lying at anchor----"
"Don't fret about that, Matt," cut in Glennie. "The Japs will have
their hands full saving their torpedo. They're thinking more about that
Whitehead just at present than of anything else. But, anyhow, we can't
try to dodge the bullets these negroes will send after us if we make a
run of it."
Matt, fretting over the delay, slowly returned to the steps. The negro
was reloading his pistol, the other was making ready to use his weapon
in case Matt refused to obey orders, and both the captain of the port
and Captain Pons were looking extremely fierce and determined.
Both captains were talking to Glennie. The ensign answered them
sharply, and the captains gave responses equally sharp.
"What a pair of dunderheads!" growled Glennie to Matt.
"How's that?" queried Matt.
"Captain Pons has developed a very bright idea," was the ensign's
sarcastic response. "He says we caused the torpedo to act in that
unaccountable manner, and that we did it in order to steal it from him."
Matt caught his breath.
"Is Captain Pons in his sober senses?" he demanded.
"All the senses Heaven endowed him with are on duty."
"How does he think we could cause the torpedo to act in that manner?"
"He lays it to our friends on the _Grampus_, but is gloriously
indefinite concerning the way they worked the trick."
Matt walked up the steps and faced Captain Pons. "We had nothing to
do with the disappearance of the torpedo!" he cried. "Why, the very
idea is preposterous! How could any of our men cause the Whitehead to
disappear in that fashion?"
"You want ze torpedo," insisted Captain Pons doggedly. "You make ze
dispute wiz me. Zen, w'en I say _non_, ze torpedo belong wiz me,
_pouf!_ away he go lak a streak. You haf stole heem, and you will
answer to ze French government for zat, by gar!"
"That is foolish talk, Captain Pons, for a man of your age and
experience."
"Hein! I am not so foolish as w'at you zink."
"It was the other boat that stole the torpedo--the submarine the Japs
stole from you."
"Zat could not be ze _Pom_. Ze Jap zey would not dar-r-r-e bring ze
_Pom_ back in ze bay."
"You don't know those Japs as well as we do, captain. They are enemies
of ours, and have followed us clear from Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. They
want to destroy the _Grampus_, to keep her out of the hands of the
United States Navy. If I don't go down there, and warn my friends and
do something to protect our submarine, this _Pom_ of yours may make an
attack."
"Zis is a friendly port," replied Captain Pons, with a wave of the
hand. "Ze Japs will not dar-r-r-e make attack in ze friendly port."
Matt was disgusted. He felt that he had never met a man so dense as
this Captain Pons.
"The Japs stole your submarine in a friendly port," he remarked dryly.
"I guess that proves that they're not above committing lawless acts
in a Chilian harbor. You have no right to detain Ensign Glennie and
myself. We are under the protection of the Stars and Stripes. If
you are determined to keep us with you on this ridiculous charge of
stealing the torpedo, then will you not accompany us to the _Grampus_
while we take measures for the boat's protection? While there, perhaps
we may be able to convince you how foolish this charge of yours is."
"Zat is reasonable talk," admitted Captain Pons gravely. "I vill spik
wiz my good friend, Captain Arco."
Matt and Glennie drew apart while the two captains held a whispered
conversation, although a very animated one.
"A couple of jumping jacks!" muttered Glennie; "and blockheads, to
boot. I wonder what those French shipbuilders were thinking of to send
a man like Captain Pons with their submarine."
"Well, he may know all about the submarine, and be perfectly
trustworthy," answered Matt.
"I wouldn't trust him to drive a pair of mules on a canal."
The ensign was completely disgusted.
"Ah!" he said, a moment later. "The two great minds have at last come
to a decision in this momentous matter."
Captains Pons and Arco approached the two lads importantly.
"Ze good captain has agreed to go back wiz you and me to ze submarine,"
announced Captain Pons. "If, w'en we get zere, you will hand ovair ze
torpedo, zen we not make ze trouble for you any more. _Allons!_ let us
be gone."
The negroes, following an order from the captain of the port, dropped
in on either side of Matt and Glennie, their antiquated pistols
prominently displayed. Then, with the two captains leading the way, the
American lads left the Casa de la Administracion.
"How those Japs managed to get hold of that torpedo without showing
themselves," remarked Glennie, on the way to the landing, "is a
conundrum."
"They must have come up under the torpedo," answered Matt, "just close
enough to the surface to grapple a coil of the rope that was around the
steel shell."
"Even on that theory the move is hard to understand. While the _Pom_
was under water it would not be possible for any one aboard of her to
work at the ropes around the torpedo."
"Perhaps the grappling was done by manoeuvring the boat."
"That might be----"
Glennie was interrupted. By that time the party had nearly reached the
landing. Before any of them stepped foot on the wharf, however, there
came a loud detonation, and a geyser-like column of water arose high
in the air. So lofty was the column that some of the spray from it was
hurled across the intervening stretch of the bay and into the faces of
Matt, Glennie, and the rest.
When the column had sunk downward, those on the shore could see that
the _Grampus_ had disappeared!