CHAPTER III.
SAVED BY A TORPEDO.
Matt's first move was to take the noose from about his throat and passthe rope around and around the torpedo, tying it fast. The loops ofthe rope gave him a handhold which he could not possibly have securedotherwise on the hard, smooth shell, rendered slippery by the waterwith which it was drenched.
The torpedo, he quickly discovered, was a Whitehead--a powerful anddeadly engine in use by all the navies of the world.
It was about seventeen feet long and a foot and a half in diameter.Torpedoes of this nature are constructed to run under the surface atany required depth down to twenty feet. A propeller and compressedair furnishes the motive power, and as the air becomes exhausted, thetorpedo rises higher and higher. With the air shut off and enginestopped, the cylinder rises to the surface. As that was the case inthe present instance, it seemed certain that the motive power of thisparticular torpedo had been nearly exhausted.
The _Grampus_, being constructed for work in time of war, had torpedotubes and one torpedo aboard. Matt had studied the mechanism of theWhitehead, and he was able to proceed intelligently in his presentdilemma. If there was still any air in the big tube, he might use itto carry him to the north and east, in the direction taken by the_Grampus_.
The lever, he discovered, which locked the engine was standing erect,while the "tripper," which worked automatically the instant the torpedowas discharged and put it under its own power, was lying flat on thecurved side.
Before trying to get the compressed air in the shell to working, heswam to the blunt end of the torpedo and removed the small propellerthat manipulated the firing pin. By this wise move he rendered harmlessthe explosive within the shell.
Swimming back, he mounted his queer raft by means of the rope loops,lifted the "tripper," and depressed the starting lever.
The twin screws, placed tandem fashion at the stern, began slowly torevolve. Heading the point of the tube north by east, he began one ofthe strangest rides that had ever fallen to his lot.
As the air within became more and more depleted, the steel cylinderrose higher and higher in the water.
For a lad so deeply in love with motors as was Matt, the novelty ofthat ride could not fail to appeal to him. He was safe, at least fora time, and felt sure that ultimately he would gain the shore or bepicked up by a coastwise ship. As for the _Grampus_, there were coolheads and steady nerves aboard of her, and the submarine's safety wouldbe looked after. Besides, the mysterious foes had failed in theirnight's work, and there was probably no more danger to be apprehendedfrom them.
As Matt held himself astride his queer craft, guiding it by a pull thisway and that, he fell to thinking of the manner in which he had beenhurled into the sea.
Some boat had discharged the torpedo, and it seemed certain thatthose who had tossed the rope over his head and pulled him from thesubmarine's deck had been on the same boat.
Had it been the intention of Matt's enemies to haul him aboard theirboat, or only to strangle him and keep him in the water until the_Grampus_ got well away, then cast him off and let him sink to thebottom?
Matt's humane instincts rebelled against the latter supposition. Hisenemies, he reasoned, had intended hauling him aboard their boat, butin some manner had lost hold of the end of the line.
A Whitehead torpedo costs something like four thousand dollars, andis altogether too valuable to leave adrift when it has been fired andmisses its target. Those who had discharged the torpedo would surelylook for it--and, if they found it, they would also find Matt.
This caused the young motorist a good deal of trepidation. He reasoned,however, that on account of the darkness of the night and the fog, hismysterious foes would probably remain in the part of the ocean wherethe torpedo had been fired and look for it in the daylight. Betweenthat hour and daylight, Matt was hoping to be picked up.
The compressed air in a torpedo will carry it about nine hundred yards.This torpedo had not gone its full distance, on account of an automaticmisplacement of the "tripper" and starting lever, but enough of the airhad been used so that Matt's ride was a short one.
After a few minutes the propellers ceased to revolve, and Matt and thesteel cylinder came to a stop, heaving up and down on the surface ofthe water. Yielding to the pull of the current, the torpedo startederratically seaward, and another fear was born in Matt's mind.
The farther seaward he was carried, the more difficult it would be tofall in with a passing boat, and the farther off would be his rescue.To carry his grewsome thoughts still farther, there was a good chancethat he would succumb to thirst and hunger before his woeful plight wasdiscovered, and----
But this gloomy train of reflections was interrupted. In the distanceMatt could see a glow of light, shining hazily through the fog. Was itthe search light of the _Grampus_, or a gleam from the other boat?
Divided between hopes and doubts, he waited and watched. The glowpresently resolved itself into a pencil of light, and he became fairlypositive that it was the searching eye of the submarine.
"Ahoy!" he shouted.
Instantly a distant commotion struck on his ears.
"Ahoy, ahoy!" came an excited answer. "Is that you, Matt?"
"Yes. Shift your wheel a couple of points to starboard and you'll beheading straight for me. Come slow--and don't run me down."
The gleam of light suddenly shifted its position. Aiming directly atMatt, it grew brighter and brighter. Matt was able to make out the darkoutlines of the submarine's low deck and conning tower, and to seethree figures well forward toward the bow, all clinging to guys andleaning out over the water.
"Are you swimming, old ship?" came the tense voice of Dick Ferral.
"Hardly," Matt answered. "I've been in the water for upward of anhour--and I couldn't have fought the current that long if I had beencompelled to swim."
"How you vas keeping off der pottom, Matt?" piped up the relieved voiceof Carl.
"There's a sort of a raft under me," Matt laughed.
"A raft? Where the dickens did you get hold of a raft, Matt?"
This was Glennie.
"Not exactly a raft," went on Matt, "but a Whitehead torpedo. We meteach other at just the right time for me. I'm riding the torpedo, andit's a fine thing for keeping a fellow afloat."
Startled expressions came from those on the submarine. By then theGrampus was so close that her search light had Matt and the Whiteheadin full glare. The amazement of the boys on the submarine increased.
"Dot's der plamedest t'ing vat I efer heardt oof!" gasped Carl. "ModorMatt riding on a dorpeto schust like it vas a tree, oder somet'ing likedot! Ach, himmelblitzen!"
Speake guided the _Grampus_ alongside the torpedo.
"Be careful, Speake!" warned Glennie. "If that infernal machine buntsinto us, we're gone."
"I'm looking out for that," answered Speake.
"You don't need to worry," called Matt reassuringly. "I wasn't going totake chances with two hundred pounds of high explosive, and one of thefirst things I did was to fix the priming pin so it wouldn't work."
The _Grampus_, responding to a signal flashed into the motor room, cameto a halt. Dick threw Matt a rope, and he began tying it to one of theloops that encircled the shell of the torpedo.
"Why are you making fast, matey?" inquired Dick.
"Because I want to tow this torpedo into Lota," answered Matt.
"Oh, bother that! Here we've been all ahoo thinking you were at thebottom and as good as done for. Now that we've found you again--and ina most amazing way, at that--cut loose from that steel tube and comeaboard. What's the use of fussing with it?"
"I'll explain when I come aboard," Matt went on. "Make the other endof the line fast, Dick, and give the cable a scope of fifty feet. I'vehooked to her so that she will follow us stern foremost."
Glennie helped Dick make the cable fast; then Matt, drawing in on theline, came alongside the rounded deck plates, and Carl helped him offthe torpedo.
"Ach, vat a
habbiness!" sputtered Carl. "I hat gifen you oop for deadt,Matt, und vat shouldt I efer have done mitoudt my bard? How you come tobe like dot, hey?"
"There's something mighty mysterious about it," said Matt. "I thoughtI heard a noise somewhere in the darkness behind the _Grampus_, andstepped aft to watch and listen; then, before I knew what was up, thenoose of a rope fell over my head and tightened about my throat. I wentinto the water with hardly a splash, unable to give a cry for help."
"I didn't hear a sound!" put in Speake excitedly.
"It was all done so quickly and silently, I don't see how you couldhave known anything about it, Speake," said Matt. "I was in a badway when I sighted that torpedo. I got astride of it, started thepropellers, and rode in the direction the _Grampus_ had taken. When thecompressed air gave out, I was expecting to be picked up by some otherboat--by the boat that had fired the torpedo at us."
"At us!" exclaimed Glennie. "Do you mean to say that torpedo that savedyou was launched at the _Grampus_?"
"Exactly," returned Matt. "It was the torpedo Dick, Carl, and I saw,and which I thought might be a floating log or a piece of wreckage."
This astounding intelligence almost carried Matt's chums off their feet.
"What enemies have we in these waters?" cried the startled Glennie.
"Why," answered Matt, "who but the Sons of the Rising Sun?"