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Read Ebook: Motor Matt Makes Good; or Another Victory For the Motor Boys by Matthews Stanley R
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Ebook has 391 lines and 22378 words, and 8 pages
"Great guns!" exclaimed Gaines. "What do you suppose did that, Dick?"
"More mysterious things have happened to us since we left Magellan Strait," ruminated Dick, "than ever came our way before. Suppose we haul in on the tow line and have a look at the end of it."
The line was pulled aboard. There were some forty feet of it, and the end was sliced off clean.
"A knife did that!" declared Clackett.
"Der vale dit id mit his teet'," asserted Carl, who always hung to one of his own theories like a dog to a bone.
"Bosh, Clackett!" scoffed Gaines. "How could a knife have done that? Who was down there to cut the rope?"
"It don't make any difference what separated the rope," put in Speake, "the thing was done, and something or other is running away with Motor Matt's torpedo. Matt must have wanted that Whitehead or he wouldn't have gone to the trouble to tow it in. Are we going to let it get away from us?"
"How can we help it?" inquired Clackett.
"We can follow it," asserted Speake.
"I guess Matt wouldn't mind if we took a dive along the bottom of the bay to overhaul that runaway torpedo," remarked Dick.
"Sure, nod!" chimed in Carl. "Matt vill be as madt as some vet hens ven ve tell him der dorpeto skyhooted avay mit itseluf und ve ditn't do nodding to shdop id."
"We'll chance it, anyway, mates," said Dick. "I'm always in command whenever our old raggie is off the boat. Get down to the motor, Gaines. Clackett, get after the tanks. Come below, the rest of you, and let the last man down secure the hatch."
Speake was the last one to drop down the hatch. The ballast tanks were already filling as he stepped off the iron ladder upon the floor of the periscope room.
Dick was at the wheel.
"Turn on the electric projector, Speake," said Dick. "I'm going up into the tower and do the steering from there."
Carl, who had been inspecting the periscope, was thrown violently against the rounded wall over the locker. Speake, just reaching up to turn the electric switch that sent a current through the wires of the projector, went head over heels against one of the bulkheads. As for Dick, he pulled off a remarkable stunt at ground and lofty tumbling, winding up with his head under the periscope table and his heels in the air.
Yells came in muffled volume from below, proving that Gaines and Clackett were likewise having their troubles.
When every one was finally right side up, Dick jumped to the speaking tubes.
"How are you down there, Gaines?" he called.
"I turned a handspring over the motor," came back the voice of Gaines, "but I guess I didn't damage anything."
"I stood on my head in one of the accumulators," added Clackett through the tank-room tube. "We turned turtle there for about half a minute. What caused it, Dick? I heard an explosion, too."
"That bally old torpedo must have gone off," answered Dick. "No use hunting for it now."
"I don't believe it was that torpedo that exploded," said Speake. "What could have set it off?"
"Der vale shlowed oop a leedle," explained Carl, "und id run indo him. I bed you somet'ing for nodding dere iss vale all ofer der pay."
"We're in luck, anyhow," exulted Dick. "This old flugee is as trim and steady as ever. Now that we're down near the bottom we'll cruise a little and see what we can discover. We've got an hour or two, I guess, before Matt and Glennie get back to the landing and want to come aboard. Slow speed, Gaines," he called.
Hurrying up into the conning tower, Dick pressed his eyes against the forward lunettes. The trail of light, reaching out through the lunette, illuminated the murky waters for several yards beyond the point of the submarine's bow.
There was a commotion in the depths, and fishes were darting in all directions.
"Am I doing a calk," he muttered, "or are these lamps of mine making a monkey's fist of their work? Strike me lucky! Carl! Look into the periscope!"
A vague shape was passing through the gleam of the search light. It looked like a huge cigar, its pointed end tilted slightly upward. At the rear of the object there was a flurry of water.
"Id's a vale!" boomed Carl, whose mind seemed to be running on whales that day.
"It's another submarine," gasped Speake, "that's what it is. I wonder if Matt didn't know there was another submarine in these waters?"
"Watch!" cried Dick excitedly. "What's that behind the thing?"
As Dick called out, those at the periscope table saw the Whitehead torpedo glide into the gleam from the electric projector. A rope held the forward end of the torpedo to the stern of the other submarine, the buoyancy of the steel cylinder causing its rear part to stand almost straight up in the water.
It was an odd procession the boat and the torpedo made as they defiled through the pencil of light.
"Dot's der feller vat shtole Matt's dorpeto!" cried Carl. "Run against der rope, Tick, und preak der dorpeto loose."
"It certainly wasn't that torpedo that went off, a little while ago, Dick," observed Speake.
"Right-o," Dick answered, startled by the thought this remark of Speake's had aroused. "It was a torpedo, though, and that other craft must have launched it at us."
"Ach, himmelblitzen!" gasped Carl. "For vy should dot odder poat shoot some dorpetos ad us, hey?"
"Give it up, Carl, unless there are some of those Sons of the Rising Sun aboard."
Dick slid down the ladder in a hurry.
Two minutes later the submarine lifted her turtle-like back out of the waves. Dick headed her south, and Carl and Speake pushed open the hatch and went out on the wet plates. Dick ascended the ladder to steer from the hatch. Hardly had he got head and shoulders into the outside air when a shout from Carl and Speake drew his eyes toward the wharf.
Matt and Glennie, and a few more the boys did not know, were on the landing. Glennie was yelling and waving his cap.
"Vat's der madder mit him, I vonder?" queried Carl. "He vouldn't be doing dot oof he knowed aboudt dot odder poat und der dorpeto."
NORTHWARD BOUND.
"Great spark plugs," cried Matt, "but you fellows gave me a scare."
"Vell, bard," answered Carl, "ve vas a leedle schared ourselufs."
"Here's another scare for you, matey," called Dick. "The Sons of the Rising Sun have a submarine of their own, and are after us. They were here, off Lota, and just went north with that torpedo in tow."
"Jupiter!" exclaimed Glennie. "How did you fellows know that?"
"You act as though it wasn't any news to you."
"That's the name of the other submarine," went on Matt. "She's a French craft and was brought here by this man, Captain Pons, to be turned over to the Chilian government. Five Japs worked a trick and succeeded in getting hold of her."
"We'll tell you all about it later, Dick. Where were you when that torpedo went off?"
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