PRISONERS ON A SUBMARINE.
Motor Matt fought in vain to free himself. At least two men had laid
hold of him, and the coat was kept drawn tightly over his face and
head to prevent outcry. In this condition he was picked up, carried
some distance along the wharf and finally laid down on his face while
his hands were lashed at his back and his feet tied. Then, perfectly
helpless and unable to see where he was being taken, he felt himself
lifted and lowered. After a moment he was lifted and lowered again,
this time, as he surmised, through a narrow hatch, for he felt the
sides of the aperture striking his arms and shoulders as he went down.
Presently he landed on a hard deck, and was again carried a short
distance. Here, when he was finally laid down, the coat was whisked
from his face and he found himself in the blinding glare of an electric
light.
Retreating footsteps came to him, followed by the slamming of a door.
As soon as his eyes had become used to the glow of the light, he
discovered that he was in a small room with a curved iron deck
overhead. An incandescent lamp was screwed into one of the walls, and
there was a door in each bulkhead at the ends of the room.
Matt was bewildered by what had recently happened to him.
Had the crew of the _Crescent_ resorted to violence in order to save
Jurgens from capture? The law would take hold of the men good and hard
for resisting an officer.
As Matt figured it, he had been brought aboard the sailboat. But what
would his captors have to gain by a move of that kind? McMillan knew
what the men on the _Crescent_ had done for Jurgens, and it was a fair
inference that the officer would soon pay the craft a visit, himself.
What put Matt in a quandary, however, was the fact that he could not
reconcile his present surroundings with the _Crescent_. He was in an
armor-plated room, and the sailboat was a small wooden vessel, and was
hardly fitted with such a cabin as that to which the prisoner had been
taken.
While Matt was wondering about this, a door in one of the bulkheads
opened and another prisoner was carried in by two men and laid down
beside him. This second captive likewise had his head smothered in a
coat, but the blue uniform told Matt plainly he was the policeman. The
officer was bound, just as Matt was, and as soon as he was laid down
the coat was jerked away and the two who had brought him into the room
started out.
"Wait!" called Matt, his voice ringing strangely between the steel
walls. "What do you mean by making prisoners of us, like this?"
One of the men looked around and laughed grimly, but he made no other
reply. The next moment the door had closed, and Matt and the officer
were alone together.
"Here's a pretty how-de-do," fumed the officer. "These villains are
goin' a good ways in their attempt to help that thief, Jurgens!
Somebody'll smart for all this."
"Those men on the _Crescent_ are foolish," said Matt. "It won't be long
before McMillan gets us out of here."
"I don't know about that," was the answer. "Mebby it won't be so easy
as you think for McMillan to get us away from these scoundrels."
"Where is McMillan? Do you know?"
"He was on the wharf with me, just before the _Crescent_ got in. He
thought him and me wasn't enough to get Jurgens off the boat, and so
he went after another officer. You're Motor Matt, who's been making
ascensions in that air ship---- I've seen you a good many times on the
beach. My name's Holcomb."
"Where do you think we are, Holcomb?" Matt asked. "It can't be we're on
the _Crescent_."
"Sure not. Looks to me as though we had been brought aboard Captain
Nemo, Jr.'s boat, the _Grampus_. She bobbed up at the Inlet wharf
yesterday. I'm on night duty at the Inlet, and I seen her last night."
"The _Grampus_?" echoed Matt. "She must be an ironclad."
"She's more'n that, Motor Matt. She's a submarine."
"A submarine! I haven't heard of such a boat being in Atlantic City."
"It ain't gen'rally known, I guess. Captain Nemo, Jr., is a queer sort
of a fish, and he's invented a boat that he claims is a little better
than any other under-water boat that was ever built. I talked with him
on the wharf, last night. Who the cap'n is, nobody knows, and he hides
himself under the name of Nemo, Jr. He talked straight enough, and fair
enough, and allowed he was keeping quiet so as not to let reporters and
other curious people bother him while he was in Atlantic City. It was
your air ship that caused him to come here."
"The air ship?" queried Matt, more and more mystified.
"That's what he told me. Everything in the line of inventions, he says,
interests him, especially if the inventions have anything to do with
gasoline motors. This boat is run by a motor of that kind. Nemo, Jr.,
said he was goin' to take a fly with you to-day."
"I guess he didn't, then. No man by that name went up with us. But the
point that's bothering me is, Holcomb, why were we brought here?"
"To save Jurgens, the movin'-picture man."
"How'll that save him?"
At that point the explosions of an engine getting to work echoed
sharply through the steel hull of the _Grampus_. The whole fabric began
to quiver, and muffled, indistinct voices could be heard. Immediately
there was a perceptible downward movement.
"We're sinking!" exclaimed Matt.
"Looks like the scoundrels was takin' us to the bottom," said Holcomb
grimly. "More'n likely McMillan has shown up with some more men and is
makin' things lively for those on the wharf. The fellows that grabbed
us are takin' us below the surface so the officers can't get at us,
or Jurgens! Gadhook it all! Captain Nemo, Jr., didn't seem like a man
who'd help out any underhand game like this. I reckon we're in for it,
Matt. I ain't got any fears but that we'll come out all right in the
end, but the outlook is a long ways from bein' pleasant. If Nemo, Jr.,
is trying'---- There! I reckon we've hit bottom."
Holcomb broke off his remarks abruptly. The downward motion of the
_Grampus_ had ceased with a slight jar. Before the two prisoners could
talk further, one of the doors opened and Jurgens came into the room.
He was followed by the man who had climbed out of the _Crescent_ and
had faced Matt on the wharf.
Closing the door behind them, the two men stood looking grimly down on
Matt and the officer.
"I don't understand what your game is," cried Holcomb, angrily, "but if
you know when you're well off, you'll set us at liberty, and be quick
about it."
"You'll get your liberty, all right," said Jurgens. "Now that I've
got hold of what I wanted, I'll not be long pulling out of Atlantic
City. The moving-picture business can go hang for all of me! I've got
a fortune in prospect, and I'll nail it here and now if it's the last
thing I ever do."
"What do you mean by treating me like this?" demanded Matt; "what have
I got to do with your plans?"
"You and the officer could have upset 'em mighty easy if we hadn't
bowled you over and got you out of the way before the rest of those
policemen got here."
"Is Captain Nemo, Jr., helping you in this game you're playing?"
queried Holcomb.
"Helping me?" Jurgens turned to his companion from the _Crescent_ with
a husky, ill-omened laugh. "That's pretty good, eh, Whistler?"
"The best ever," answered Whistler, echoing the laugh.
"Townsend has helped me to the extent of furnishin' something I'd about
given up laying my hands on," went on Jurgens, again turning his eyes
on Matt and the officer. "I want you two to tell him that I'm off for
the Bahamas, and that he'll have to get up in the morning if he beats
Lat Jurgens."
"Townsend?" queried Matt.
"Yes," scowled the other, "Townsend. That's the name he uses when he's
ashore. When he's afloat, he's Captain Nemo, Jr."
Matt was astounded.
"Have you stolen this submarine, Jurgens," he asked, "as well as that
paper that----"
"You know all you're goin' to," interrupted Jurgens. Turning to
Whistler he added: "Cut the boy loose and make him strip. It's time
we got rid of him and the policeman and cleared out of here. We're a
fathom under water, but Townsend may think of some way to get at us if
we stay here too long."
Whistler bent over Matt and removed the ropes.
"You're going to put us ashore?" asked Matt, getting to his feet and
stretching his benumbed limbs.
"We're goin' to send you to the surface, and you'll have to attend to
gettin' ashore yourselves. Can you swim?"
Matt nodded.
"I can't," said Holcomb.
"Well," went on Jurgens, "I don't want to drown you, but the _Grampus_
can't go to the surface just to let you off. You say you can swim,"
and he turned to Matt. "You'll come up not far from the wharf, and ten
to one you'll find quite a lot of people on the wharf. As soon as they
pull you in, you tell them to get out a small boat and lay to in her
half a fathom off the end of the pier. That's where the officer will
come up, and you can fish him in out of the wet. Now, strip."
"Why am I to do that?" demanded Matt.
"Because you'll be able to swim easier with your clothes off."
"I'll not take them off. If we're still alongside the wharf, I can make
it without removing my clothes. How are you going to send me to the
surface?"
"Come on and I'll show you. Drop in behind him, Whistler, and hold a
gun ready in case he tries any foolishness."
Jurgens turned and opened the door through which he and his companion
had just come. Matt followed him through the door, Whistler bringing up
the rear with a drawn weapon.
Matt was bewildered by the trend of recent events. The quickest way for
getting at the nub of the difficulty was by finding Townsend, otherwise
Captain Nemo, Jr., and hearing what he had to say.
But how was Matt to be sent to the surface?
That was the point which, just then, was causing him the most wonder.