CHAPTER VIII.
THE OVERTURNED BOAT.
Matt's heaviness of spirit was reflected in his face.
"Don't be discouraged," said the captain. "We'll cruise around in thispart of the gulf and I feel pretty sure we'll find your friends. Itwould have been difficult to locate them during the storm, and the_Grampus_ might have passed within a cable's length of the whaleboatwithout seeing it or being seen; but, on a day like this, we've got therange of the ocean for miles, and the whaleboat can't get away from us!"
"Providing it's afloat," replied Matt apprehensively.
"Breakfast!" yelled Cassidy from the periscope room.
"That means us," said Captain Nemo, Jr.
The present complement of the submarine consisted of the captain, mateand three men. The duties of the captain and mate kept them constantlyin the periscope room and conning tower. Gaines had charge of thehundred and twenty horse-power gasoline motor, Clackett looked afterthe trimming tanks, and Speake was general utility, taking care of theelectric supply and compressed air and preparing the meals. Each hadhis particular station, and when the boat was running the officersrarely saw any of the crew.
Gaines' room was aft, Clackett's was nearer the waist of the boat, andSpeake was forward in the torpedo room.
There being no use for the torpedo room during peaceable cruising, itwas transformed into a galley, and here Speake prepared the meals on anelectric range.
During breakfast Speake relieved Gaines at the motor, and Cassidy tookthe lookout. Gaines, Clackett, Captain Nemo, Jr., and Matt crowded intothe little messroom, dropped down on low stools and drank their hotcoffee and ate their crackers and boiled eggs.
When Matt and the captain had finished they went up and relievedCassidy and sent him down. Matt seated himself on the deck at the baseof the conning tower, the captain taking the elevated position in thetop of the tower.
"While I'm using the glasses, and you're using your eyes, Matt," saidthe captain, "we might as well talk and try to understand the causesthat brought you and your chums into this situation. I was curious onthat point last night, but didn't want to bother you when you were sotired and worried."
"If you were surprised to see me, captain," returned Matt, "you canimagine how astounded I was to find you and the _Grampus_."
"The wind was taken out of my sails completely when I learned that youand your friends had sailed on the _Santa Maria_."
"Then you didn't send us three tickets and ask us to sail on thesteamer for British Honduras?"
"Certainly not! That was part of the plan for getting you away. Sixtymust have laid the plan and trusted to his daughter to carry it out."
"His daughter?"
"Yes. She was the girl who called on you at the hotel shortly beforethe steamer sailed--Ysabel Sixty. Captain Sixty married a Spanish womanin Cuba, and the girl was their only child."
"She used pretty good English when she talked with me."
"That's because she has passed most of her life in the United States,while her father has been engaged in questionable work all over thehigh seas."
"She said she was your niece, that her mamma was Sadie Harris, and thatshe had come to New Orleans as soon as she heard that you were sick."
The captain smiled grimly.
"Sixty told her what to say," he answered.
"But," and Matt's surprise took another tack, "how do you happen toknow that she called on me at the hotel?"
"Clackett found that out. I sent him to the hotel to ask you and yourchums to come to Stuyvesant Dock and board the _Grampus_. Cassidy wasto bring the submarine down from Westwego. But let's begin at thebeginning and get at this thing with some sort of system."
Matt led off with an account of the mixed messages, following thiswith a description of the girl and of what had transpired during theirinterview, and then finishing with what had taken place on the steamer.
The captain, although he kept the binoculars sweeping the sea, wasabsorbed in the recital.
"What name was signed to that message that fell into your hands bymistake?" he asked.
"I didn't pay any attention to the name," Matt replied. "I read themessage to make sure it wasn't for me, but I didn't read the signature."
"What was the message?"
"It merely gave a position by latitude and longitude with the addedwords, 'two days ago--no wind and no drift since.'"
The captain showed signs of suppressed excitement.
"What was the latitude and longitude?" he asked. "Can you remember it?"
"No," said Matt. "I knew it did not concern me, so I failed to chargemy mind with it."
"It concerned you more than you know. I am positive that Sixty luredyou aboard the steamer because he feared you had learned something fromthe telegram which you could use to his disadvantage. What was yourmessage--the one that Sixty got and read?"
"It was from a man who didn't know our air ship had been wrecked anddestroyed. He wanted to buy her, and referred us to you, saying that heknew you."
"My name was mentioned in the telegram?"
"The name of Townsend was mentioned."
"Ah! The cause of Sixty's work is becoming clearer and clearer. He knewI was a friend of yours, that the government had asked me to watch him,and that you had had a chance to secure some important information fromthe telegram. It was enough to make a man like Sixty try somethingdesperate!"
"You were watching him?" queried Matt, "and for the government?"
"Yes. Sixty has been a trader in the South Seas, but lately he hascaused the government to suspect him of an attempt to smuggle arms andammunition to Central America to help out some revolutionists there.His brig, the _Dolphin_, cleared from New Orleans a few weeks ago,having dropped in at that port from across the ocean, and has sincemysteriously vanished. It has been something like a week since Sixtyshowed up in New Orleans again. The government had communicated with mebefore I came to the South, asking me to locate the _Dolphin_, followher and see what she was up to. If I couldn't find the brig I was tofollow Sixty. That was the business on which I wanted your aid, but Icouldn't tell you anything about it until the time came for us to act.You see, I didn't want Sixty to think that he was being watched. WhenClackett, who was shadowing Sixty, brought me word that he had justseen him leaving New Orleans on the _Santa Maria_, I immediately madepreparations to follow the steamer; and I was more anxious than ever totrail her when Clackett reported that you and your friends, as well asSixty, were on the boat. I knew, at once, that there was some crookedwork afoot.
"We gained on the steamer in the river, and came within sight of hertwo or three hours after she had reached the gulf. We submerged the_Grampus_ until the periscope ball was just awash and trailed along inher wake. On the periscope table I saw some one drop overboard, and weimmediately emptied our ballast tanks and came to the surface. I wassurprised enough when I found that it was you who was in the water,Matt. We were too far away to see Sixty throw you over the rail. Thetruth of the matter is, Sixty is afraid of you--afraid you would tellme what was contained in that telegram. The bearings set forth by thatlatitude and longitude must have been mighty important!"
"Your work for the government," commented Matt, "in spite of the wayyou guarded it, must have become known to Sixty."
"Yes; but he did not learn it through me. Some one in Washington musthave kept him informed."
"The girl also seemed to have a pretty good knowledge of the fact thatI was going to help you."
"Sixty may have inferred that, and if the girl talked guardedly withyou she might still further have developed the point."
"That's exactly what she did!" exclaimed Matt, with sudden divination."I can see now that she was playing a part all the time. I don't thinkshe liked the work, but that she was forced to do it by her father."
"Sixty's a rough old webfoot, and when his unscrupulous mind counsels acourse he's not at all particular as to the ways and means by which hekeeps to it."
"How would throwing me overb
oard help him any?"
"If he had put you out of the way, you wouldn't have been able to usethe knowledge you had acquired from that telegram."
"But there was Dick and Carl. They knew about the message as well as Idid."
"Then Sixty would have taken care of them, too."
"What a murderous scoundrel he is!" muttered Matt with a shudder.
"He's all of that and----"
The words died on the captain's lips and, for a moment, he held theglasses rigidly on some object at a distance.
"What is it, captain?" cried Matt, leaping up and straining his eyes,but without being able to see anything.
"Perhaps nothing," answered Nemo, Jr., "I can't tell. But we'll give itthe benefit of the doubt and go over that way."
Dropping a hand at his side he pressed a push button which had awire communicating with the engine room. The signal he gave sent the_Grampus_ on another tack. As she rushed onward the object that hadclaimed the captain's attention grew slowly on Matt's eyes.
It was an overturned whaleboat, and on one side, in black letters, wasthe name "_Santa Maria_."
Matt staggered, and laid hold of the rim of the conning tower forsupport.
What if his chums had lost their lives through that despicable work ofCaptain Sixty's?