“And on us,” said Gaines, leaving the periscope room with Dick.
Cassidy merely gave a nod and turned to his steering wheel. Bob went up into the tower and placed himself at one of the lunettes. His heart was beating against his ribs with trip-hammer blows, but his brain was cool and clear. When he had given the crew sufficient time to gain their stations, he lifted his voice loudly.
“Ready!”
The word rang through the periscope room and echoed clatteringly through the steel hull.
The propeller began to whirl like mad, and the sudden opening of the ballast tanks depressed the free rear portion of the submarine.
For a full minute the wild struggle went on, and so shaken was the boat that it seemed as though she must fly in pieces. Then, abruptly, the Grampus leaped backward and upward, clearing the forestlike growth of seaweed at a gigantic bound.
The upward motion was felt by every one in the boat, and cries of exultation came to Bob’s ears in clamoring echoes.
Slipping like lightning down the ladder, he shouted to Gaines to stop the madly working engine and reverse it at a more leisurely speed.
Like a huge air bubble, the Grampus swung up and up, and when she emerged above the surface, and Bob could see sunlight through the dripping lunettes, he turned off the electric projector, opened the hatch and threw it back, and gulped down deep breaths of the warm, fresh air.
Once more slipping down the ladder, he saluted the captain.