“Again! Let her have it!” yelled Lieutenant Selby, carried away by excitement.
Again and again the Hotchkiss viciously cracked and spat fire and every time brought the Tarantula nearer to the crippled diver. It was evident that the submarine could not last much longer. Already her speed was a mere crawl. One of Adams’ projectiles must have penetrated to her engine-room or else,—as was more likely,—her crew had mutinied.
Suddenly the slide on her back opened and through it poured a crowd of the little brown men who had been employed at Bellman’s Island. They cried, they screamed appeals of aid to the pursuing ship, which had of course ceased firing as human figures appeared.
“They want us to take ’em aboard, sir,” said old Adams, who had served in the far East and understood their appeals. “They say they are sinking and that their engineer is killed.”
“Lower the boats,” ordered Selby, “we’ll get them off. I won’t see men drown if I can help it.”
A coatless man suddenly appeared among the searchlight illumined crowd on the back of the submarine. It was Bellman. By his side was Foyashi, also coatless and desperate.
“Back, you yellow dogs. Get back below!” yelled Bellman, flourishing a revolver.
A beseeching cry went up.
“We’ll go to the bottom together,” shouted Bellman, apparently beside himself. The next instant his revolver cracked and two of the little brown men fell across the steel plates. What happened then was like a nightmare to the boys who stood watching in horrified amazement. The whole swarming crowd of panic-stricken men seized Bellman and Foyashi and paying no attention to their despairing cries hurled them overboard.
In vain the wretches tried to clasp the sides of the wounded submarine and haul themselves back on deck. They were knocked off each time by their crazed followers. Before the boats from the Tarantula could reach them they both had disappeared. In the submarine’s engine-room Job Scudder, too, lay dead—killed beside his engines at Adams’ first successful shot.