“Come,” he cried, “we may yet be in time to take a hand in the game.”
Out into the night the four men plunged, and raced down to the dockyard; but they were a few moments too late. The submarine had gone.
The shock of this discovery stunned them for a time.
They had counted on Haverly keeping the scoundrels from boarding the vessel; but it seemed clear to them that their American friend had failed in his undertaking, and had paid the penalty of his daring.
“Silas must have got wiped out,” Oswyn muttered sadly; “he would never have let them get possession of her otherwise,” in which statement, as the reader knows, Frank was mistaken.
“What’s the next move?” Seymour asked. “Your craft’s too swift to think of pursuit, I suppose?”
“It’s hopeless to think of recovering her,” returned the inventor. “What’s that?”
A brilliant light had flashed over the dark waters of the bay.
“There she is!” Mervyn cried, and an instant later the torpedo-shaped craft became visible to each of the watchers.
But her movements puzzled them; she appeared to be making for the dock entrance.