Conlon drew the metal tube, with a piece of wire pendant from it, as carefully as though it had been a royal baby and heir to a throne. Into the boat the engine tender lifted the thing, and laid it carefully in a locker. By the time that Conlon was back at the rail Reade had gone below again.
"Down dere, aftah mo' death!" grinned the darkey. A colored man can usually be brave when serving under a white leader in whom he has full confidence.
Presently Tom came up with another metal tube, like the first.
"I'll hang on and get my breath," Tom informed the men in the boat, as he rested one hand on the rail. "The other two bombs are about three feet lower, and it's going to be hard to work at the lower depth."
"Be careful, won't you, sir?" urged Conlon, in a somewhat awed voice. "Mr. Reade, we can't afford to lose you until this job is completed. Men with all the nerve you show are scarce in the world."
"I know where there are forty thousand men with at least as much nerve, many of them having several times as much as I," laughed Tom.
"Where on earth are they?" demanded the Irishman.
"In the United States Navy. If there were a battleship here the jackies would be fighting for the honor of going down after these bombs."
Then Reade dropped out of sight, once more. Nor was it long before he had the third and the fourth bombs aboard the boat. Then he climbed in himself, dripping like a shaggy Newfoundland dog.
"Put in at the dock now," the young chief ordered, and the boat started on its way.