“What sort of danger?” Bob had bounded from the cot and was close to the door as he spoke.
“There’s a line of reefs on the port side, and the current is drawing us that way! Unless we get the propeller to work in less than fifteen minutes the Grampus will be wrecked!”
“Open the door!” said Bob sharply.
“You won’t make us any trouble?” parried Gaines.
“Open the door, I tell you!” shouted Bob. “We haven’t a minute to lose!”
Without a promise to bind him as to his future course, Bob was allowed to leave the steel room. Paying no attention to the don, who was standing in the periscope chamber, he rushed through another door, dropped down a narrow hatch, and crawled aft to the motor room.
CHAPTER XXII.
A LESSON IN “WHO’S WHO.”
In order to reach the motor room, Bob had to crawl through a low chamber closely packed with storage batteries. There were sixty cells with a power of one hundred and sixty volts, and with a capacity of what is known, in electrical parlance, as sixteen hundred ampere hours. This room was Speake’s dominion, and he sat on a low stool, his head just clearing the deck above, watching furtively as Bob scrambled past him.
Tucked away in the stern, at the end of the floored space, was the motor room. It looked like the tunnel shaft of an ocean liner. At one side there were switchboards for two dynamotors: one of ten horse power to compress air, and a second of two horse power to supply lights and assist the ventilation. The spiral resistance coils were close to the switchboards. The gasoline engine was in the center of the compartment, and back of this stretched the shaft, finally passing out into the water through a stuffing box.