"Ah! It's you, Tom Dacre? Yes, I have some orders. I wish you would go forward into the torpedo chamber and see if we are taking in any water. I'm rather afraid that a plate may have been sprung."
"And if there is a leak?" asked the professor, who, like Tom, had succeeded in mastering his first alarm.
"If there is," was the placid response, "we must stop it; or," he paused for an instant, "or remain down here."
Even Tom blanched anew at these words. Death in a watery tomb was staring them in the face. But he hastened off on his errand. Anything was better than helpless inaction at such a moment.
Fortunately, the lights had not been extinguished in the crash, and the metal-walled torpedo room was illuminated brilliantly with a flood of electric light. To his great relief, Tom, after a careful examination, was able to report that there were no apparent injuries to the Huron, forward. She seemed to be as tight as a bottle, thanks, doubtless, to her double "skin."
"I hardly thought that she would be seriously damaged," said the inventor calmly. "See, she is coming up on an even keel, too, now. I guess we'll start a little investigation right here."
"Ain't we a-gwine up to de top?" whined Rosewater, who was cowering in a corner.
"Not yet," was the calm response, "I want to find out just what it was we struck."
"Good heavens! The man must be made of his own metal," Tom heard the professor gasp under his breath. But, excepting Rosewater, none of them remonstrated.
While they watched him curiously, Mr. Ironsides shoved the engine room signal lever over to "Ahead, slow."