"Look!" cried one of the crew forward as he pointed off the starboard bow of the Jules Verne at an object that had just shot up out of the water. It was the head of a man!
As members of the crew of the Jules Verne, with Superintendent Brown and Captain Austin in the lead, swarmed to the side of the ship there came an upheaval from beneath and a tremor that shook the old boat from stem to stern. It was as though a geyser had let loose directly under the new diving ship.
"The bomb! It has exploded!" Larry Seymour, his face ashen white, sought anew to get a telephone communication with the two Brighton boys whom he loved so dearly.
But even as he despaired there came a welcome cry forward.
"Thacker! It's Thacker! He escaped unharmed from the Nautilus."
But where was Dick?
CHAPTER XVII A Dog to the Rescue
EVEN as the crowd of sailors on the Jules Verne cheered, Jay Thacker turned on his back in the waters of Long Island Sound and waved a hearty salute to his friends. Unharmed, he had completely escaped from the Nautilus just a few seconds before the bomb was exploded in the sunken coal barge.