“Won’t he be a furious man, though,” Ballyhoo laughingly said, as they talked this over, “when he realizes that we only left him, as our skipper remarked, an empty bag to hold?”
“It’s beginning to kick up considerable out here, for one thing,” announced Jack, as the squat undersea boat began to pitch more or less, and the waves could be seen running higher and higher.
“Yes, and once again you can notice clouds gathering over there,” Oscar added, as he swept his hand around to indicate the direction. “We may run into another storm before the day is much older.”
“Huh! what does that matter to us?” Ballyhoo chuckled, “when we can drop out of all the rush, and lie at the bottom as snug as you please, waiting for the waves to quiet down, and the winds to cease? I tell you these tubs may not be very comfortable in a whole lot of ways; but when it comes to dodging trouble in the shape of storms they’ve got a hunch on everything going, believe me.”
Lest the enemy might think to keep a lookout so as to report their course, skipper was taking a false tack. Later on this could be easily remedied, and the lost time made up.
An hour afterwards the little Key was almost out of sight, even with the glass, for with the rising of the clouds, and the freshening breeze, there had come a slight mist in the air that rendered seeing difficult.
“Good-bye to Coco Key, then,” Ballyhoo had said, waving his hand toward the distant northwest where the island lay. “And I warrant you those chaps are the busy lot right now, sending a diver down, and holding their breath until he comes up again to report nothing doing. But say, it’s getting beyond a joke out here. You’ve got to hold tight unless you want to be tossed overboard. I move we go below, boys, and settle down; any old time now the skipper will be giving orders to close the hatch, because we’re meaning to dip under.”
It happened that they received notice to leave the “hurricane deck” before Ballyhoo’s advice could be acted on. And the last glimpse they had of the ocean things were certainly looking pretty stormy.
Then followed the customary sounds that told they were taking on water ballast, and sinking fast. After that the rocking, sickening motion gradually ceased until they were moving on an even keel, with everything steady around them.
As usual the boys, not being able to move around much, sought their bunks, to lie there and doze, or else converse on the many subjects that were of interest to them. Oscar wandered off at one time, there being something he wished to see in connection with the working of the submarine at such a time as this.