CHASING A TORPEDO.
Dick and Carl, together with the rest of the crew of the _Grampus_, did
a lot of guessing after Matt and Glennie left them with the captain of
the port.
The commotion kicked up by the torpedo put a sudden and effectual stop
to their speculations. Carl, Dick, and Speake were on deck when the
Whitehead began its peculiar performance, and the jerks administered to
the _Grampus_ by the tow line quickly brought Gaines and Clackett up
through the tower hatch.
"Ach, du lieber!" cried Carl. "See vonce vat has habbened mit der
dorpeto. A vale has got dangled oop mit der tow line; oder oof id don'd
vas a vale id vas a shark, und a pig feller, I bed you. Vat a funny
pitzness! From der actions, id looks like der dorpeto vas alife."
"Whale!" scoffed Dick. "Don't you believe that a whale, or shark,
either, has got anything to do with that."
"Vat it iss, den?"
"I give it up. What do you think, Speake?"
"Ask me something easy," answered Speake. "Mebby something has got
loose inside the torpedo--compressed air, or something--and that that
is what's putting the big tube through its jig."
"Led's pull in der line," suggested Carl, "und make der dorpeto pehave."
"Not on your life!" cried Dick. "It's full of dynamite, and I'll never
let the _Grampus_ get any closer to that infernal machine than she is
now."
"Matt vants dot dorpeto or he vouldn't haf taken der drouple to tow her
in."
"Matt can have it, matey, but I don't intend to board a Whitehead when
it's dancing a hornpipe. If the dynamite should happen to let go----"
Dick was interrupted by a chorus of surprised yells from the rest of
his companions.
The torpedo, kicking one end high in the air, had taken a "header"
toward the bottom of the bay.
"Dot means goot-by," murmured the amazed Carl. "Der vale's run off
mit it. Bedder dot vale look a leedle oudt und not knock his tail too
hardt against der dorpeto. Oof he do dot, den, py shinks, he make some
mincemeat out oof himseluf."
"Great guns!" exclaimed Gaines. "What do you suppose did that, Dick?"
"More mysterious things have happened to us since we left Magellan
Strait," ruminated Dick, "than ever came our way before. Suppose we
haul in on the tow line and have a look at the end of it."
The line was pulled aboard. There were some forty feet of it, and the
end was sliced off clean.
"A knife did that!" declared Clackett.
"Der vale dit id mit his teet'," asserted Carl, who always hung to one
of his own theories like a dog to a bone.
"Bosh, Clackett!" scoffed Gaines. "How could a knife have done that?
Who was down there to cut the rope?"
"It don't make any difference what separated the rope," put in Speake,
"the thing was done, and something or other is running away with Motor
Matt's torpedo. Matt must have wanted that Whitehead or he wouldn't
have gone to the trouble to tow it in. Are we going to let it get away
from us?"
"How can we help it?" inquired Clackett.
"We can follow it," asserted Speake.
"We haven't any business taking the _Grampus_ from her anchorage while
Matt's ashore," said Gaines.
"I guess Matt wouldn't mind if we took a dive along the bottom of the
bay to overhaul that runaway torpedo," remarked Dick.
"Sure, nod!" chimed in Carl. "Matt vill be as madt as some vet hens ven
ve tell him der dorpeto skyhooted avay mit itseluf und ve ditn't do
nodding to shdop id."
"We'll chance it, anyway, mates," said Dick. "I'm always in command
whenever our old raggie is off the boat. Get down to the motor, Gaines.
Clackett, get after the tanks. Come below, the rest of you, and let the
last man down secure the hatch."
Speake was the last one to drop down the hatch. The ballast tanks were
already filling as he stepped off the iron ladder upon the floor of the
periscope room.
Dick was at the wheel.
"Turn on the electric projector, Speake," said Dick. "I'm going up into
the tower and do the steering from there."
Dick got just two rounds up the ladder when a muffled roar enveloped
the _Grampus_, and she was heaved violently over until the tower was
almost on a level with her keel.
Carl, who had been inspecting the periscope, was thrown violently
against the rounded wall over the locker. Speake, just reaching up to
turn the electric switch that sent a current through the wires of the
projector, went head over heels against one of the bulkheads. As for
Dick, he pulled off a remarkable stunt at ground and lofty tumbling,
winding up with his head under the periscope table and his heels in the
air.
Yells came in muffled volume from below, proving that Gaines and
Clackett were likewise having their troubles.
The _Grampus_ righted herself almost as quickly as she had flopped
over. This, taking place before those aboard had had a chance to adjust
themselves, still further complicated matters.
When every one was finally right side up, Dick jumped to the speaking
tubes.
"How are you down there, Gaines?" he called.
"I turned a handspring over the motor," came back the voice of Gaines,
"but I guess I didn't damage anything."
"I stood on my head in one of the accumulators," added Clackett through
the tank-room tube. "We turned turtle there for about half a minute.
What caused it, Dick? I heard an explosion, too."
"That bally old torpedo must have gone off," answered Dick. "No use
hunting for it now."
"I don't believe it was that torpedo that exploded," said Speake. "What
could have set it off?"
"Der vale shlowed oop a leedle," explained Carl, "und id run indo him.
I bed you somet'ing for nodding dere iss vale all ofer der pay."
"We're in luck, anyhow," exulted Dick. "This old flugee is as trim
and steady as ever. Now that we're down near the bottom we'll cruise
a little and see what we can discover. We've got an hour or two, I
guess, before Matt and Glennie get back to the landing and want to come
aboard. Slow speed, Gaines," he called.
Hurrying up into the conning tower, Dick pressed his eyes against the
forward lunettes. The trail of light, reaching out through the lunette,
illuminated the murky waters for several yards beyond the point of the
submarine's bow.
There was a commotion in the depths, and fishes were darting in all
directions.
Steering from the ladder, Dick headed the _Grampus_ toward the north.
They had not gone far before Dick saw something which made him rub his
eyes.
"Am I doing a calk," he muttered, "or are these lamps of mine making
a monkey's fist of their work? Strike me lucky! Carl! Look into the
periscope!"
A vague shape was passing through the gleam of the search light. It
looked like a huge cigar, its pointed end tilted slightly upward. At
the rear of the object there was a flurry of water.
"Id's a vale!" boomed Carl, whose mind seemed to be running on whales
that day.
"It's another submarine," gasped Speake, "that's what it is. I wonder
if Matt didn't know there was another submarine in these waters?"
"Watch!" cried Dick excitedly. "What's that behind the thing?"
The other boat was moving in a course that angled slightly with the
direction the _Grampus_ was following. Because of this the second craft
was some time in passing through the glow of the search light.
As Dick called out, those at the periscope table saw the Whitehead
torpedo glide into the gleam from the electric projector. A rope held
the forward end of the torpedo to the stern of the other submarine, the
buoyancy of the steel cylinder causing its rear part to stand almost
straight up in the water.
It was an odd procession the boat and the torpedo made as they defiled
through the pencil of light.
"Dot's der feller vat shtole Matt's dorpeto!" cried Carl. "Run against
der rope, Tick, und preak der dorpeto loose."
"Not much, I won't, matey," breathed Dick. "We're not going to take any
chances with _that_ Whitehead."
"It certainly wasn't that torpedo that went off, a little while ago,
Dick," observed Speake.
"Right-o," Dick answered, startled by the thought this remark of
Speake's had aroused. "It was a torpedo, though, and that other craft
must have launched it at us."
"Ach, himmelblitzen!" gasped Carl. "For vy should dot odder poat shoot
some dorpetos ad us, hey?"
"Give it up, Carl, unless there are some of those Sons of the Rising
Sun aboard."
Dick slid down the ladder in a hurry.
"Empty the tanks, Clackett!" he sang out. "We've got to hustle out
of this," he added to Carl and Speake, "before they shoot another
Whitehead at us. Keelhaul me, but this will be news for Matt. We've got
to tell him about it as soon as ever we can get the _Grampus_ back to
her old berth."
Two minutes later the submarine lifted her turtle-like back out of the
waves. Dick headed her south, and Carl and Speake pushed open the hatch
and went out on the wet plates. Dick ascended the ladder to steer from
the hatch. Hardly had he got head and shoulders into the outside air
when a shout from Carl and Speake drew his eyes toward the wharf.
Matt and Glennie, and a few more the boys did not know, were on the
landing. Glennie was yelling and waving his cap.
"Vat's der madder mit him, I vonder?" queried Carl. "He vouldn't be
doing dot oof he knowed aboudt dot odder poat und der dorpeto."