CHAPTER XIX
A JOKE ON THE SECRET SERVICE!
"What's that noise?" wondered Williamson.
He stopped, listening intently, for he was still below.
Against the bottom of the "Benson's" hull he heard a steady, slow, monotonous bumping. As he listened, his face took on an anxious look.
"We're in a friendly port," muttered the machinist. "It can't be anything very wrong, and yet—"
That slow steady bumping continued.
"Anything bumping against the bull of a boat at anchor, in that fashion may be wrong," concluded the man, swiftly.
His mind made up to this much, the rest was not difficult to decide. The cause of that bumping required instant investigation. Williamson caught up the tool that came quickest to hand, a pair of nippers, thrust them into his jumper and raced up to the deck.
"If it's any real mischief," he muttered, "I hope I won't be too slow—too late!"
With that he dived overboard, at the starboard rail, the side nearest the gunboat. There was a splash—then the waters closed over the machinist.
He came up at about the point he had planned, where he had heard the bumping.
Held below water as he was by the under-hull of the submarine, he could move with certainty, though but slowly.
Groping, the machinist encountered the metal cylinder. Quickly he felt for its connections which, like a flash, he knew must exist. He found the wire, but reached for another. It all had to be done swiftly, for his reserve "wind" was fast giving out. Not finding a second wire, he fastened his nippers against the first wire—then cut. Now, steering the metal cylinder, he pushed it out from under the hull. Cylinder and man rose together.
Whew! What a powerful breath the man took! Then he steered the cylinder carefully against the hull, and managed to hold it there until he could reach a piece of cordage and make the cylinder fast.
This done, he dashed below, thumping hard on the door of the stateroom occupied by Captain Jack Benson and Hal Hastings.
"Eh? What is it?" called Jack, almost instantly.
"You're wanted on deck, Captain—instantly," replied the dripping machinist.
"Oh, all right, Williamson," and Benson's feet hit the stateroom floor.
A minute later he was above, Hal following only some twenty seconds behind his young chief.
Williamson swiftly told how he had heard the bumping against the hull, and how he had found the cylinder, with a wire connection.
"Gunboat, ahoy!" roared Captain Jack, snatching up a megaphone and holding it to his lips.
The response was prompt. In less than three minutes a cutter, containing an officer, a corporal and four marines, was alongside.
"The first thing for us to do is to take that cylinder aboard the 'Waverly' and investigate it," decided Ensign Foss. "I'll leave the marines here until I get further instructions from the commanding officer."
"Anything happening?" demanded Eph, reaching deck just after the cutter had put off. He eyed the marine squad curiously.
"Just what we're trying to find out," replied Jack.
"It must seem to you that I acted amiss in leaving the deck," put in
Williamson.
"But you didn't," retorted Jack. "Had you been on deck you wouldn't have heard that infernal machine bumping against the hull."
"Infernal?" echoed Eph Somers, rubbing his eyes. "Say, have I been missing a whole lot by being asleep?"
The other three told him quickly all they knew of what had happened.
Within five minutes the cutter came back, bringing two more marines and a young second lieutenant of that corps.
"Lieutenant Commander Kimball's compliments, sir," reported the second lieutenant. "He will put in an appearance as soon as that cylinder has been investigated. He has sent me with instructions to see what had best be done."
"I don't believe there's much doubt as to what had best be done," replied Captain Jack, quickly. "Williamson reports having cut a wire that was attached to that cylinder. I think we can find that wire again, and, if we do, we can easily follow it to its other end."
"By jove, that's good enough," muttered the lieutenant.
"Williamson is already wet," proposed Jack. "He can dive again, and see whether he can pick up that wire. If he needs any help, I'll go overboard with him."
"Wait until I see what I can do," proposed the machinist.
This time he dived over the port side of the craft. Three or four times he came up for air, next going, below again. At last, however, Williamson came up, calling:
"I have a part of the wire in my hands."
Lieutenant Foster ordered his marines into the cutter, inviting Jack and Hal also to go with him. They rowed out alongside of Williamson, picking up the machinist and his wire.
"We'd better put your man back on the boat, hadn't we, Mr. Benson?" inquired the marine lieutenant.
"I'm not such weak stuff as that, sir," almost grumbled the machinist. "I can stand a few minutes more in wet clothes, and I want to go along to see where this wire leads."
"Good enough," nodded Lieutenant Foster, he gave the order to row along slowly, while two marines in the bow of the cutter slowly gathered in the wire, at the same time signaling back the direction in which it lay.
Only a few minutes were needed thus to follow the trail straight to the clump of bushes on shore.
"Nobody leave the boat until we have a lantern ready," directed Lieutenant Foster. "We don't want to tramp out the trail of the rascals who laid that mine."
The marine lieutenant himself was the first to step ashore, and Jack
Benson was with him.
"Here are the footprints of the rascals," announced Foster, as the two stepped cautiously into the bushes.
"Yes; there were just two of them here, apparently," replied Jack, after studying the prints, and discovering the marks of only two different sizes or kinds of shoes.
"Here's the imprint of a box," added Foster. "Good heavens, the scoundrels had a regular magneto battery, insulated wire and all, for firing that mine from the shore. Mr. Benson, they meant to blow your boat into Kingdom Come!"
"It looks that way," replied Jack Benson, composedly.
On hearing that voice, so even and unaffected in its utterance,
Lieutenant Foster looked at the submarine boy keenly.
"By Jove, Benson, you're cool enough to be an admiral," muttered the marine officer, admiringly.
"Why, this doesn't seem to be a joke on me," replied Captain, Jack, smiling back at the lieutenant.
"A joke!"
"It's one on the Secret Service," laughed Jack, quietly. "They are the ones who are supposed to have the job of keeping off spies and all of their kind."
"Yes; this certainly came from the spies, or their friends," muttered Lieutenant Foster. "Jove, but we have a desperate crowd to deal with when they'll go to such a length as this in time of peace!"
"Oh, it may all turn out to be a joke," put Hal, quietly. "Some one may have been doing this to try us out. That metal cylinder may prove to have been loaded with ginger-bread or peanuts. If anyone has been trying a joke on us, then I'm mighty glad we didn't get rattled."
"I reckon we shall soon know just what that cylinder did contain," muttered Lieutenant Foster. "Here's another cutter coming from the 'Waverly,' and I think I make out Lieutenant Commander Kimball in the stern-sheets."
It was, indeed, the lieutenant commander. As he stepped ashore, his face coming into the circle of light cast by the lantern, his features were seen to be white with anxiety.
"We have just looked into the cylinder," he announced, in a low voice.
"We found there enough gun-cotton to blow the 'Benson' into inch pieces.
It was a fearful crime to plan."
Jack Benson and Hal Hastings heard, but did not change color. There was no sense in losing nerve over a disaster that had been averted in time.
"The first thing to do, of course," continued Lieutenant Commander
Kimball, "is to send instant word to Messrs. Trotter and Packwood.
They have a heap of work ahead of them."
"As to our own boat's crew," replied Jack, "I fancy the best thing we can do is to go back on board, since we can't do anything here. One of us will keep watch, and the rest of us can get some of a night's sleep yet."
"Why, yes, if you youngsters can sleep, after such happenings," laughed
Kimball.
By this time Lieutenant Foster and two of his marines had followed the trail of footprints as far as the hard road. Here all trace was lost.
"What you want to do, Williamson," declared Jack, as soon as the submarine people were back on their own craft, "is to get into some dry clothes and make yourself a pot of hot coffee. Then get in between blankets for a sleep. I'll finish out your watch."
Nor was Benson alone in his watch, for a cutter from the gunboat, containing a corporal and two marines, beside sailors to row the boat, moved slowly around the submarine at a distance of fifteen or twenty yards.
After the rest had gone below, Captain Jack, hanging over the rail of the platform deck, saw other lanterns gleaming in and around the clump of bushes.
"That must be the Secret Service people, pulled out of their comfortable beds," mused Benson, smiling. "Won't they feel upset at any such thing happening hours after they've arrived on the spot?"
After Eph Somers had reported on deck to take his watch, Jack went below, once more dropping into sound slumber. The smell of coffee and bacon was wafted in from the galley when the young submarine captain next awoke.
"Well," announced Eph, as Jack and Hal came forward for their breakfast,
"Trotter and Packwood haven't caught the fellows that laid the mine."
"It doesn't look strongly probable that they'll catch them, either," Jack replied. "I don't believe that the fellows who did that trick are any of the regular spies. For that matter, we now of only three spies here who are men. Drummond is under arrest, and so is Gaston. Neither of them could have had a hand in it. And there were two, so, if M. Lemaire was in it, he had an unknown accomplice. But I don't believe M. Lemaire had any personal hand in laying that mine. I've a notion that he considers himself entirely too high class to go into any mere blasting operations."
"'Mere blasting operations' is good," smiled Hal Hastings, "when we stop to think what those 'blasting operations' might have done for us if it hadn't been for Williamson."
"Anyone taking my name in vain?" demanded the machinist, smiling as he put in an appearance at that moment.
"We're trying to see," Eph explained, "whether we can do any better guessing than the Secret Service men as to the fellows who were kind enough to lay that mine under us last night."
"Got it figured out?" asked the machinist, as he transferred, a generous helping of bacon, eggs and fried potatoes, to his plate.
"For myself," put in Hal, "I'd suspect that fellow Gaston, in an instant, if he had only been at liberty. That fellow has an eye that looks like all the letters in the word 'r-e-v-e-n-g-e.'"
"That's so," nodded Jack, thoughtfully, as he ate. "But we happen to know that Gaston is very safe under lock and key. By the way, fellows, I don't suppose Mr. Farnum and Mr. Pollard have heard the news yet, or they'd be out here on the double quick."
After breakfast Jack went ashore alone, to carry the exciting news to his employers. He found Messrs. Farnum and Pollard in the breakfast room at the Clayton. Both were astounded when they heard the news of the night's doings.
"Who on earth could have put up such a job against the submarine?" gasped David Pollard.
"I don't know, sir," Captain Jack replied. "But I've left Hal on board, in command, and I mean to find out something about this business, if there is any way to do it."
With that he excused himself, rising and leaving the table at which his employers were seated.
Jacob Farnum gazed after his young submarine captain, then whispered to the inventor:
"That youngster has some notion in his head of where to look for the infernal criminals. And, ten to one, his idea is a good one that will bear fruit!"