CHAPTER II.
HURLED INTO THE SEA.
Matt was very much worried when Dick and Carl, agreeably to theirorders, went below. It was not the strange visitor that had passed thebows of the _Grampus_ on its glowing way that rested heavily on hismind, but the news gathered from the captain of the mail boat that hadbeen spoken early in the day.
On leaving the western end of the Strait of Magellan, the submarineand her crew had, as they supposed, left behind them for the rest oftheir cruise their wily enemies, the Sons of the Rising Sun. They hadhad trouble enough on account of the Japanese while coming through thestrait, and Matt thought that he and his friends were entitled to arespite, so far as the nefarious plots of the fanatical young Japs wereconcerned.[A]
[A] The adventures of the motor boys, in and around Magellan Strait,were set forth in No. 19 of the MOTOR STORIES, entitled, "Motor Matt'sDefiance; or, Around the Horn."
It was the responsibility for the safety of the _Grampus_ that restedso heavily on the young motorist's mind. Weeks before, when thesubmarine had left Belize, British Honduras, Captain Nemo, Jr., theowner of the boat, had placed the craft entirely in Matt's hands.
"I wouldn't trust the _Grampus_ with any one else, Matt," declared thecaptain. "But you've got nerve, your judgment is good, you know thecraft from one end to the other, and whenever anything goes wrong andyou get into a scrape, you've got a knack of always getting out of itwithout much damage to yourself. A hundred thousand dollars is to bepaid for the _Grampus_ when she reaches Mare Island. If the submarinedoesn't reach there in good condition, the money will not be paid.Sickness will detain me for a while in Belize, and so that puts thiswork of taking the boat around the Horn up to you. Now go ahead!"
Motor Matt appreciated to the full Captain Nemo, Jr.'s trust andconfidence. He had vowed to himself over and over again that he wouldprove to the captain he was worthy of the trust reposed in him. Mattwas thinking of all this on the deck of the _Grampus_, after Dick andCarl had left him; and, in the midst of his reflection, he fancied heheard a muffled sound from somewhere in the submarine's wake.
Instantly alarmed, he passed the conning tower, without exchanging anywords with Speake, and took up a position not far from the churningpropeller. But he heard nothing further, and could see nothing eitherto increase or diminish his fears. He was just turning about to makehis way forward, when a coil struck about his throat, drawing taut onthe instant and preventing any outcry. At the same instant there camean irresistible pull backward.
Matt, astounded by this unexpected attack, reaching him from some pointaway from the boat and darting silently and suddenly out of the thickgloom, flung up his hands in an attempt to clutch one of the wire guysof the periscope mast.
He missed the guy by a fraction of an inch, slipped downward over therounded deck and rolled into the water. He made little noise, so littlethat Speake could not hear it above the swirl of waves thrown up by therounded plates of the _Grampus_.
Another moment and Matt was in the water and swimming. The deadlycompression at his throat continued, and he was unable to voice asound. He could see the little search light of the submarine movingrapidly onward into the darkness, and could see the half of Speake'sform, like a blot of shadow, rearing out of the tower hatch.
All this time Matt felt the pull of the rope about his neck, drawinghim steadily and remorselessly away into the foggy night. No one spokebehind him, and there was not the slightest sound to tell him who hiscaptors were, or where they were, or how they had succeeded in makinghim a victim in that mysterious fashion.
A minute, two minutes, passed. At the end of that time Matt felt hisstrength leaving him because of the strangling grip about his throat.Then, suddenly, the rearward "pull" relaxed and the constriction athis throat ceased. With one hand he reached upward and pulled thestrangling coil loose and gulped down a deep draught of air.
A moment later he gave vent to a cry, hoping to attract the attentionof Speake. But the _Grampus_ was too far away. With difficulty Mattfreed himself of his shoes and coat. He had no idea how long he wouldhave to swim, but he prepared himself to keep afloat as long aspossible. What the end was to be he did not know, and he had no time togive to that phase of the question.
Some mysterious force had hurled him from the deck of the _Grampus_into the sea, and perhaps this same force would continue to take careof him. Turning about in the water, he lifted himself high with adownward stroke of his powerful arms, and peered in the direction fromwhich the attack had come. He could see nothing and could hear nothing.
For a moment Motor Matt was tempted to forget his dire plight inmarveling over the mysterious nature of that attack. The next instant,however, he began asking himself if it would be possible to reach theChilian shore. It was a mile away, at least. To swim such a distancewas no very extraordinary feat, but there were currents sucking Mattoceanward, and against these it was powerless for him to struggle.
Matt could keep afloat, but to what purpose? Would it be possiblefor him to keep on the surface until his friends on the submarinediscovered his absence and put back to his rescue? Even if he couldswim for that length of time, could his friends find him in thatdarkness, with the current dragging him farther and farther from thecourse over which the _Grampus_ had recently passed?
In Motor Matt's place, a good many lads would have given up thestruggle, but Matt was of different calibre. As long as there was abreath in his body he would fight, for he knew that while there is lifethere is always hope.
Blindly and doggedly he continued his battle with the waves, peeringinto the northeast from time to time, in the hope of seeing the searchlight of the _Grampus_. He did not see the search light, but he sawsomething else lying sluggishly in the water not a great distance fromwhere he was.
"A log!" he thought.
Under the impression that fate had thrown across his path a bit ofdrift from the mainland, he swam to the object and laid hold of it asit heaved and ducked on the placid waves.
It was not a log. As he put out one hand it came in contact withsmooth, wet metal. The object was a long cylinder, blunt at one end andpointed at the other.
"A torpedo!" ran his thought, as he hung over the rounded object withone arm and supported himself in the water. "Who fired the torpedo?"was the question he asked himself.
He had leisure now for a little reflection. No strength was required tokeep himself afloat, for the steel cylinder supported him.
As he hung there, lifting and falling with the long, deadly tube, histhoughts harked back to the queer object he, and Dick, and Carl hadseen in the water. The result of his reflections paralyzed him.
_Some mysterious enemy had launched the torpedo at the Grampus!_
Had the infernal machine struck the submarine, the craft and every oneaboard would have been torn to pieces.
A slow horror pulsed through Motor Matt's veins.
The same enemies who had launched the torpedo must surely have jerkedMatt from the deck of the submarine. But who were they? where were they?
With difficulty he lifted himself and got astride the rolling cylinder.From that elevated position he looked around him into the darkness.Silence reigned in every direction. There was no sign of the mysteriousfoes who had attempted to destroy the _Grampus_ and to make a prisonerof her commanding officer.
Presently the young motorist became conscious that the coil was stillabout his throat, and that a long object was trailing downward andhanging with some weight from his neck.
It was a rope. He began pulling it in, coiling the wet length of it inhis hand. The rope was all of seventy-five feet long, he judged, andthat distance must have marked the position of his foes when the noosewas cast. To see even half that distance into the thick darkness wasimpossible, but why had Matt not been able to _hear_ the men who hadattempted such dastardly work?
Speculations were useless. Matt, however, had secured a makeshift raftwhich would keep him afloat until such time as the _Grampus_, or someother boat, coul
d pick him up.
Hoping that the submarine would come to no harm, and determined to makethe best of his desperate situation, the king of the motor boys setabout making an examination of the steel tube that supported him.