Possibly, however, if the occupants of the submarine had possessed the gift of what the Scotch call “back sight,” they might not have slumbered so peacefully. Had they had this faculty, they would have been able to take in the details of a scene that occurred at their moorings a short time after they had slipped them for the exciting test voyage.
Hardly had the Lockyer’s nose poked itself outside the harbor before a long, narrow, low-lying motor-boat glided across the waters. On board her were two men. One of them held a pair of powerful night glasses in his hand. Raising them, as the craft neared the spot in which the submarine had been moored, he scrutinized the surroundings carefully.
An exclamation of disappointment left his lips as he perceived that there was no sign of the submarine at her anchorage.
“She’s gone!” he exclaimed angrily. “I thought you said, Anderson, that she was anchored right off here after the launching?”
“And so she was,” rejoined the late foreman of the Lockyer boatyard; “didn’t I see her with my own eyes? I was in among the crowd, and elbowed right and left, it’s true, but still I know what I’m about, Tom Gradbarr. I guess that Lockyer has stolen a march on us and sneaked out to sea on a trial trip.”
“That’s the way it looks,” was the rejoinder. “Well, perhaps it’s all for the best. They would have kept a pretty strict watch to-night, anyhow. It’s bound to be some time before the navy finally accepts her. I know the way they do things at Washington. We are bound to find another chance to carry out orders.”
“That being the case, let’s get back to the island,” suggested Anderson, who, had it been light, would have been seen to be as pale as ashes. Something like a sigh of relief had, in fact, escaped his lips when he saw that the Lockyer was not at her expected moorings as they had thought.
“Yes. I guess we had better turn back,” said the other. He gave the “automobile control” wheel, by which the motor craft was guided, a twist, and she spun round like a long, lithe snake. “We’ve got to get back and put Ferriss and Camberly ashore, anyhow.”
“They’ll be mad as hornets when they hear that we’ve done nothing,” came from Anderson, as the boat gathered way.
“Can’t be helped,” was the gruff rejoinder. “Jobs like the one they’ve set us can’t be done in the wink of an eye.”