CHAPTER VIII.
A DIVE FOR SAFETY.
As Matt was the last one to lose his senses, so he was the first torecover. And here again his superior endurance must have scored in hisfavor.
Always in the pink of physical condition, and striving constantly tokeep himself so, his powers of recuperation were quick to react andreassert themselves.
He sat up, dazed and bewildered, and was some moments in picking up thechain of events where it had been dropped.
By degrees he lived over the events that immediately preceded his lapseinto unconsciousness, and thoughts of the treacherous Ah Sin broughthim staggering to his feet.
The _Grampus_ was yawing and tumbling about in the waves, completelyat the mercy of wind and currents. Seizing the wheel, Matt broughtthe submarine to her course and lashed the wheel with his twistedhandkerchief.
Pausing by the foot of the ladder he looked up into the conning tower.The hatch was open.
What had become of the Chinaman he asked himself. Had he, confidentthat the boat would be blown up, gained the deck and thrown himselfinto the sea? Matt had heard of fanatics of that sort--carrying outorders given by a higher power and then immolating themselves on thealtar of what they supposed to be their duty.
The Japs were noted for self-sacrifices of that kind, and Ah Sin wasnot a Chinaman, but a little yellow man from the land of the mikado.
How long Matt had remained unconscious he had no means of knowing.
Resolved to discover what had become of the supposed Chinaman at allhazards, Matt climbed laboriously up the ladder. The cool, salt air,pouring down the hatch, served still further to revive him and bringback his strength.
At last, when he braced himself in the opening and was able to cast asweeping glance over the waves, the sight unrolled before him brought astartled exclamation to his lips.
A cable's length from the submarine was a dory manned by smartlyuniformed yellow sailors. Hove to, half a dozen fathoms beyond thedory, was the steamer with the black funnel and the red band, her portrail lined with figures that were evidently watching the _Grampus_.Between the dory and the submarine was a swimming figure, which Matthad little difficulty in recognizing as being that of Tolo, otherwiseAh Sin.
Tolo was swimming and looking behind, and the eyes of those in the dorywere on the _Grampus_, the men at the oars turning their heads to lookover their shoulders.
It seemed plain that they were expecting an explosion, and that theywere hurrying to get Tolo out of the way of it.
Matt's blood ran cold as he thought of the heinous plot that had sonearly been carried out by the disguised Japanese. Policy was back ofthe murderous plan, but was it a policy dictated by a powerful nation,or merely by a set of misguided men, acting on their own accord?
The young motorist had no time to debate this point. A shout ofconsternation greeted his appearance at the conning-tower hatch. Theofficer in the dory spoke to his men, and all turned their faces theother way and bent their backs to the oars.
It flashed over Matt, in a twinkling, that the crew from the steamerwere still of the opinion that they could destroy the submarine, andthat they were hastening to get aboard the craft in order to carry outtheir nefarious designs.
Without losing a moment, Matt drew back into the tower and closed andbarred the hatch. Lurching down the ladder he called desperately to hiscompanions. Speake and Dick were sitting up, staring blankly at eachother. When Matt appeared they fixed their bewildered eyes on him.
"Wake up!" cried Matt, springing to Dick and shaking him vigorously."Get your wits together, Dick, and be quick about it."
"Keelhaul me!" mumbled Dick. "There was dope in that coffee."
"That's right," seconded Speake, rubbing a hand across his forehead.
"Never mind that now," went on Matt hurriedly. "Enemies are upon us!That steamer you saw in the periscope, Speake, is hove to a little wayfrom us, and our motor is slowed until we have scarcely steerage-way.A boat is coming toward the _Grampus_, and we shall be boarded beforeyou can say Jack Robinson. We've got to make a dive for safety. Rouseyourselves, both of you! To the motor, Dick! Speake, attend to thetanks--fill them for a twenty-foot submersion. You----"
Something struck against the side of the submarine, and a jar followedas of some one springing to the deck.
"There they are!" shouted Matt. "Below with you--quick!"
Speake and Dick got unsteadily to their feet. Matt's ominous wordsalarmed them, and did more than anything else to clear the fog fromtheir minds. Making their way stumblingly through the door they loweredthemselves down the hatch.
Several more ringing thumps on the deck proved to Matt that others hadcome aboard. Presently there was a banging on the hatch cover.
"Open!" cried a muffled voice with a queer foreign intonation. "Open sothat we can talk!"
"Who are you?" roared Matt, his voice sounding like thunder in theconfined space.
"Young Samurai, patriots of Nippon, Sons of the Rising Sun, IndependentProtectors of the Kingdom. Open!"
Matt forced his way up the ladder again. Slant eyes were pressedagainst the lunettes and met his.
Already, however, water was entering the ballast tanks and the_Grampus_ was beginning to settle.
"Our flag is the Stars and Stripes," yelled Matt, shaking his fist atthe eyes on the other side of the thick glass, "and you dare not lay ahand on us! If your mikado knew what you were about----"
"Our mikado knows nothing," interrupted a voice. "We----"
The fact that the submarine was diving came suddenly home to those onthe deck. Already the waves were creaming over the curved plates, drawninto a flurry by the suction as the boat went down.
The eyes disappeared from the lunettes, and the Japanese scrambled fortheir boat. Another moment and the conning tower was submerged and Mattcould hear the waters gurgling over the hatch cover.
Sliding down to the periscope room he looked into the periscope.Some of the sailors were in the water, and others, in the boat, weredesperately busy getting them aboard. For a moment only Matt was ableto use the periscope, and then the waters closed about the ball, thevalves protecting the ball from an inrush of water closed, and the_Grampus_ was more than fifteen feet down.
"Twenty feet, matey!" came the voice of Dick.
"That will do, Speake," called Matt.
The tanks were closed.
"Drive her ahead, Dick!" cried Matt.
The motor was speeded up and the _Grampus_ hustled onward below thesurface. While Matt unlashed the wheel and brought the boat moredirectly into her course, a loud boom and a splash were heard.
"What's that?" demanded Speake.
"The steamer is firing at us," answered Matt.
"Let 'em shoot," laughed Dick. "A heap of good it will do them to dropshot into the sea."
"How's Gaines, Dick?"
"Coming along full and by, forty knots. He's sitting up and beginningto take notice."
"How about Clackett, Speake?"
"He jest asked me to tell him where he was," replied Speake, "so Iguess he'll soon be able to take hold."
"Good! We're coming out of this a whole lot better than I had dared tohope."
"Dot's righdt," spoke up Carl, coming suddenly to a sitting posture.
"How do you feel, old chap?" asked Matt.
"I peen lying dere on my pack trying to guess id oudt," Carl answered.
"That's about the way I stack up, Mr. King," said Glennie, turning overon his side so he could face Matt. "Where are we?"
"We're twenty feet down and headed for the delta of the Amazon, Mr.Glennie."
"Didn't you lose consciousness, like the rest of us?"
"Yes; but I wasn't out of my head so long. I was the last to go and thefirst to come to."
"How do you account for that?"
Glennie sat up on the locker, as he put the question, and began rubbinghis head.
"I didn't drink so much of that bitter coffee as the rest of you did,"replied Matt.
> "That's right," muttered Glennie; "I was forgetting about the coffee.It was drugged--it must have been."
"Yah, so helup me!" growled Carl. "Der shink vas oop to some funnypitzness, und he has peen efer since he come apoardt der poat. Shinksiss pad meticine, anyvays. Ve ought to haf droon him oferpoard oncheneral brinciples."
"Where's Ah Sin now?" queried Glennie, looking around the roomexpectantly.
"The last I saw of him," said Matt, "he was in the water swimmingtoward a small boat."
Glennie started to his feet, astounded.
"In the water?" he echoed. "Do you mean to say you allowed thescoundrel to get away, Mr. King? And all the time you knew just howmuch his presence meant to me!"
Matt gazed fixedly at the ensign.
"Your head must still be troubled with that dope the supposed Chinamanput in the coffee," said he calmly. "It was lucky that I was able to dowhat I did, and, as for the Chinaman getting away, I could no more helpthat than any of the rest of you. But it was a lucky thing for us thathe _did_ get away, I can tell you that."
"Vat pitzness you got finding some fault mit Motor Matt?" snappedCarl, making a truculent move in Glennie's direction. "You vas abassencher--don'd forged dot--und Matt vas der skipper. Ve ought tocall him Gaptain, only he von't allow id; but, all der same, he iss dergaptain oof der poat, und you vill keep some shdillness mit yourselufoder I vill pat you on der pack mit mein fist. Yah, so, Misder Glennie!"
"That will do, Carl," said Matt. "Draw back into your shell now, andkeep some stillness yourself. I can handle my own end with Mr. Glennie."
Carl flung off to the other side of the room, tramping heavily to showhis impatience and disgust.
"I presume," said the ensign reflectively, "that you did the bestyou could, Mr. King, so I have no fault to find with you. But youunderstand that Ah Sin was my only hope for locating those importantpapers in Para."
Matt stared, wondering if Glennie had forgotten the discovery he hadmade just before he had lapsed into unconsciousness.
"I had a mighty queer dream about that Chinaman," pursued Glennie. "Ithought you had a fight with him, Matt, and that, during the scuffle,his old slouch hat came off, and the queue along with it. And I wasunder the impression that Ah Sin wasn't a Chinaman at all, but Tolo,that rascally Jap."
"That wasn't a dream, Mr. Glennie," answered Matt, "but is literallywhat took place."
"Is that a fact?" cried the ensign.
"Look ad here vonce!" called Carl.
He had picked up the slouch hat and the attached queue and placed themon his head.
"Great Moses!" muttered Glennie, reeling back against the wall. "HowI've been fooled! And I never recognized the scoundrel in his chinkmake-up! Well, I guess I deserve all the bad luck that's coming myway. I've been a dunderhead ever since the _Seminole_ dropped me in LaGuayra."
"Whoosh!" exclaimed Carl, disgustedly, pulling off the hat and pigtailand throwing them into the locker. "I don'd like der shmell oof dert'ings," and he dropped the locker lid and turned away. "Vat's dis,hey?" he inquired, picking up the bomb.