CHAPTER VII.
TURNING THE TABLES.
How Carl had managed to release himself Matt did not know, and he wastoo busy, just then, to spare time to ask. The leader of the Chilians,leaning out into the narrow passage, lifted the revolver with theintention of firing it at Carl. The position of the fighters did notgive the man the chance he wanted--but it did give Matt an opportunityof which he was not slow to take advantage.
While the face of the Chilian was turned, the young motorist leaped athim and clasped him about the neck with his arms. There was no headroom in the passage between the engine room and the tank room. In orderto get through it a person had to go down on his hands and knees andcreep.
Matt caught the leader of the Chilians just where a step downward ledfrom the passage into the engine room--the farthest point aft in theboat.
The swarthy rascal gave vent to a yell, shouting something to thetwo men above. As Matt pulled him backward and downward, Dick rushedforward and lent his aid.
"Fine-o!" panted Dick, gripping the hand that held the revolver andwrenching the weapon away. "We're turning the tables quicker than Iever thought we'd be able to do. It's a main lucky thing Carl was leftin the torpedo room. Quiet, you treacherous swab!" Dick added to thefiercely battling Chilian. "Stop your fighting or I'll put a bulletinto you."
"Give me the revolver, Dick," said Matt, "and I'll take care of him.You go and lend Carl a hand."
Carl was having a hard time of it. The Chilian was not large, but hardlabor in the penal settlement of Punta Arenas had developed his muscles.
Carl, at the bottom of the hatchway leading up to the periscope room,was doing his utmost to bear the Chilian down in the passage leadingto the tank room. He was on the rascal's back, throttling him with hishands, and trying to force him forward.
The man, holding the harpoon point up, was jabbing with it over hisshoulder. It was a dangerous instrument, and if Carl had been struckfairly with the lance-like point, he would surely have been badly hurt.
"You t'ought you hat got der pest oof Modor Matt, hey?" Carl waswhooping as he continued compressing his fingers about the brown throatand gave no attention to the harpoon. "Vell, you got some more t'oughtscoming. I peen Modor Matt's chum, und I vas a rekular horned ven I gotmy mad oop--a yellow chacket mit some stingers, yah, so! Vy don'd youfall mit yourseluf? Vy don'd----"
Just then the point of the harpoon ran through Carl's hair, raking hisscalp.
"Shdop id, oder I vill shdrangle you!" Carl cried.
The Chilian, so to speak, had got the range. He was breathing inchoking gasps, but he still had strength enough to stand upright, andhe was preparing for a backward thrust with the harpoon, which mighthave won the day for him had not Dick interfered.
At the critical moment Dick seized the fellow's arm and wrenched it soseverely that the harpoon fell clanging to the steel floor. The nextinstant the boys had the Chilian down.
"Get a rope, Carl!" puffed Dick. "I can hold him while you're doing it.Better get two ropes--one for Matt to use."
Carl darted into the torpedo room, and was soon back with the ropes.They were the same ones that had been used to secure him and Matt.
"Durn aboudt iss fair blay," chuckled Carl. "Der ropes ve use on demvas de vones dey use on us! Ach, vat a habbiness!"
The man was quickly bound, and Carl and Dick crept on to where Matt wasthreatening the leader of the treacherous clique with the firearm.
"You and Carl can take care of the fellow, Dick," said Matt. "I'llleave you and go up to the periscope room. There's no telling what'sbeen going on there."
"Slant away, matey," said Dick. "Carl and I can handle this dago, withground to spare."
"You bed you!" echoed Carl; "ve can take care oof all der tagos on derpoat."
Matt waited for no more, but crawled back to the ladder and hurried tothe periscope chamber. What he saw from the door alarmed him. Glenniewas lying on the floor, and the two other Chilians were nowhere to beseen.
"Glennie!" shouted Matt, rushing forward.
Glennie lifted himself on one elbow and gave the young motorist abewildered look; then abruptly his brain cleared and he realized whathad taken place.
"All right, Matt," said he. "As soon as that row was turned on below Iwas knocked over. C?sar, what a thump I got!" Glennie sat up and liftedboth hands to the back of his head. "What's going on?" he asked.
"We've captured the two villains who were below with us," Mattanswered. "What has become of the other two?"
"Give it up. My wits went woolgathering the minute I dropped."
Matt ran to the door of the steel room and tried it. It was locked.
"Hello, out there!" came the voice of Speake. "What's all theexcitement about?"
"We've captured the boat back again," replied Matt.
"Hooray!" exulted Clackett. "Let us out, Matt."
"As soon as I find the key." Matt turned to Glennie. "Who did you sayhad the key?" he asked.
"One of the two who were here with me," said Glennie. "They must havegone up on deck."
Matt sprang to the iron ladder and mounted swiftly to the hatch. Thehatch was open and the morning sun was streaming down. The moment hegot his head through the opening, he saw a sight that still furtherincreased his alarm.
At least a dozen canoes were in the bay, arranged in a circle at a goodsafe distance from the _Grampus_. The boats were constructed of roughplanks rudely tied together with the sinews of animals. There were fourwarriors in each canoe; small, fierce little men wearing cloaks of thesea otter and with faces like those of baboons. The warriors were armedwith bows and arrows, and in each canoe the small fighters had theirbows in hand with an arrow laid to the string.
Matt recalled what Glennie had said just before Carl made his attack onthe Chilian with the harpoon. Evidently this flock of canoes had beenin the bay, the warriors intent upon some nefarious expedition, whenthe _Grampus_ lifted herself to the surface of the water.
This apparition, emerging from the depths of the bay, must have filledthe superstitious natives with panic. They had fled, Matt reasoned, buthad plucked up heart when the monster had failed to attack them and haddrawn closer.
In grim silence the warriors surveyed the youth. They made no attemptto attack, but watched with glittering eyes, their steel-pointed arrowsready.
"That's a layout for you!" came the voice of Glennie from below. Hewas looking into the periscope, and had as good a view of the canoesand warriors as Matt had himself. "Don't let them get a whack at you,Matt," the ensign cautioned. "They're a treacherous lot of savages,and many a good ship they have coaxed to her doom by lighting fires onshore in stormy weather. It was those false beacons that gave theirland the name of Terra del Fuego--the Land of Fire."
"I thought the country was named that because of the habit the nativeshave of carrying fire with them to keep them warm."
"Some say one thing and some another, but----"
"No use debating that question now. What I'd like to know is where havethose other Chilians gone?"
"Can't you see them? They're beyond the canoes in a boat of their own,and pulling ashore."
The periscope ball, being fifteen feet above the deck of the _Grampus_,afforded Glennie a wider view than Matt had from the top of the tower.Matt climbed higher up the ladder and looked shoreward over the headsof the savages in the canoes.
He saw the two Chilians. They were in one of the rough boats andgetting hastily toward the shore of the bay.
"How do you suppose they ever managed to get that canoe and passthrough the circle of Fuegans?" asked Glennie. "Why, the savages arenot even chasing them!"
"Probably," guessed Matt, "the Fuegans thought the Chilians werevisitors from the bottom of the sea, inasmuch as they came out of theboat, and were afraid to molest them. But we're not going to let thescoundrels get away so easy as all that."
Stepping back down the ladder until his fingers could touch thesteering device and the bell pushes, Matt rang for full speed ah
ead.
The jingle of the bell reached the Fuegans, and perhaps gave them theidea that this monster of the deep was making ready to do battle withthem. Dropping their bows, they seized their paddles and shot theircanoes to a safer distance.
The churning of the propeller still further alarmed the savages, andwhen the submarine headed shoreward, pointing straight for one segmentof the canoe-draw circle, there was a wild scramble among the boats toget out of the way.
The Chilians, looking over their shoulders and seeing the _Grampus_pursuing them, redoubled their efforts to get away. But they would nothave succeeded had not the Fuegans unexpectedly changed their tactics.
Whiz-z-z--zip! An arrow flashed past Matt's head.
"Come down, Matt!" shouted Glennie. "If you don't they'll put one ofthose arrows through you! It's a wonder that one missed."
Matt needed no second bidding. Emboldened by the attack of the firstsavage, all the others prepared to launch their shafts.
As Matt dropped into the tower and closed and secured the hatch, averitable cloud of arrows came pecking at tower and deck, some of themgliding off into space, and some of them splintering and breaking uponthe tough steel.
Matt continued to remain in the tower, his eyes at the lunettes and hishand on the steering device.
Any further attempt to chase the escaping Chilians was only a wasteof time. Even if the _Grampus_ overhauled them it would have beenimpossible for those aboard to get out on deck and effect a capture.Their canoe might have been run down and destroyed, but that wouldmerely have thrown the convicts into the water, where they would havebeen drowned or pierced with the sharp-pointed Fuegan arrows. Ratherthan have the Chilians slain, Matt chose to let them get ashore andtake their chances on dry land.
The Fuegans, however, had no intention of giving up their attack. WhenMatt vanished below the conning-tower hatch, they divined instantlythat he was afraid of their arrows. He could be no god of the ocean'sdepths if a Fuegan arrow frightened him. Reasoning in this primitivefashion, the savages gave vent to loud cries and urged their canoestoward the submarine from all sides.