Within ten minutes they discovered that the engines had started working again, and a little while later their propeller began to churn the water at the stern.
It was now late in the afternoon. They had really spent several hours behind the island instead of the short space of time at first intended; but then no one felt that it mattered to any great extent, since they were in no particular hurry.
“Let me have that glass, please, Oscar?” Ballyhoo asked. “There’s a vessel off to the southwest, low down, and I’ve got a sneaking notion she looks a whole lot like that same Dauntless we gave the slip to.”
This, of course, aroused considerable interest on the part of the other boys. Oscar obediently handed the marine glasses over, for they had been lying close beside him on the little upper deck, which Ballyhoo persisted in describing as the “hurricane deck” of the undersea boat. Jack, on his part, ceased handling his camera, and also turned his eyes in the direction indicated.
Hardly had Ballyhoo located the object he had been watching than he gave a satisfied grunt.
“That means you were right, I take it?” remarked Oscar.
“Just what it does,” came the ready answer. “She’s beat us down here, and seems to know just about where we ought to turn up, hang the luck!”
“Oh! nothing much to worry about yet,” Oscar told him. “Whenever we feel like giving her the once over, all we have to do is to turn the nose of our craft down, kick our heels in the air, and disappear, to come up fifty miles away in any old direction.”
“Guess you’re right there, Oscar,” admitted the boy who still held the glasses glued to his eyes, as though fairly fascinated by the abrupt reappearance of the mysterious black craft, which, as they knew, must be manned by the rival party under the lead of that reckless buccaneer of fortune, Captain Badger.
“That’s the beauty of these submarine wrecking craft,” laughed Jack; “they can swim on the surface in fair weather, dive below in foul, remain hidden about as long as they please, and all the while be making their little eight or ten knots an hour in any old direction. Yes, they are as hard to locate as a jumping flea—now you’ve got him, but when you go to look he isn’t there.”