Since the majority seemed to be in favor of more speed, the engines were again urged to greater effort. Suddenly all were startled by a cry from Jimmie. The boat swerved sharply to starboard, rolling until the deck was at an acute angle. Harry reached for the levers, prepared to stand by the engines for orders from the pilot.
Directly Jimmie rang a stop bell. The vessel came again to an even keel. The boys were once more able to stand upright.
“What’s the matter, Jimmie?” cried Ned, as he scrambled to his feet. “Is it a whale, or did you nearly have a collision?”
“Collision is exactly the word!” declared the other. “I saw the masts of a ship standing right in our path. I got this little craft turned just in time! That’s what we get for blundering along so fast!”
“What kind of a ship is it?” asked Frank, peering from one porthole after another. “Are you sure it was the mast of a vessel?”
“Why, certainly, I am sure!” was Jimmie’s decisive answer. “Don’t I know a ship’s masts? I surely do!” the lad answered his own question.
“Let’s swing around and see what it was,” proposed Frank.
“All right, turn the deflecting rudders and down we go!”
Swinging in a broad circle, the submarine was directed downward to a level equal with that of the hull of the ship, whose masts had so nearly proven disastrous to the boys. As the craft sank deeper the crew watched with a great deal of curiosity from the thick glasses over the portholes. Carefully they studied every detail of rig.