Up on the deck of the Jules Verne there was the maddest confusion. It had maintained for nearly half an hour, since the chief engineer had first reported trouble from below. Frantically, members of the crew were endeavoring to make the necessary repairs. In the meantime, every one knew by now of the perilous position of the two Brighton boys who had been working for some time in the Nautilus.
"My God, man, we've got to get those boys up somehow!" raved Superintendent Brown as he paced the deck.
Captain Austin, his face tense with anxiety, was directing the knot of men who were endeavoring to string up again a set of cables that ran down along the access tube and connected under the Nautilus. Fortunately, the captain had seen the break coming just before the steel parted and the severed ends had been held before they had dropped overboard.
Watch in hand, Captain Austin was keeping tabs on the time limit until the bomb in the coal barge was scheduled to go off. Eagerly the captain had scanned the bay in every direction for some other vessel that might stand by and give them help. But not a craft showed anywhere close, not even a sailboat. Unfortunately, the Jules Verne had not as yet been fitted out with wireless, and there was, consequently, no way to communicate ashore or with any other vessel.
"How are you coming, boys, on those cables?" Superintendent "Montey" Brown kept inquiring every minute or so of the repair crew.
They were making progress, but it was slow work. Splicing was no easy task, especially with steel wire. If brand new cables could be run out it would be a much easier proposition; but that was out of the question with the Nautilus on the bottom of the Sound over the coal barge eighty-five feet under water. And there were no diving suits as yet on the Jules Verne for just such emergency cases as these.
"Tell them to keep a stout heart," Captain Austin reminded Larry Seymour several times, who was at the telephone and signal booth connecting with the Nautilus.
Larry in turn reported that he could not always get a reply from below.
"Probably they are trying some way to worm their way out," suggested Larry, who was nearly beside himself with worry for his two old pals. Poor old Jay and Dick! They had been such good friends for so long. Was it possible now that some disaster was to overtake them?
It was while Larry was thus painfully reviewing the possibilities of the next few minutes that Captain Austin suggested to the boys in the Nautilus that they try and put the time bomb in the coal barge out of commission. Eagerly the would-be rescuers on the Jules Verne awaited developments.