“Perhaps he thinks of getting in ahead of us with the Aurelian,” ventured Hartley: “it is just like the old hypocrite.”
“Indeed, that is so,” agreed Clifford.
But Frank Reade, Jr., frowned.
“It will bother him some to locate the Donna Veneta before we do,” he said. “It is possible that he can do it, but I don’t believe it.”
So the matter was dropped.
The spirits of the fortune hunters were high.
They could not restrain their exuberance. That night Hartley and Clifford went back to New York to complete their preparations.
In three days the Dolphin was to begin its submarine voyage for the Gulf. On the afternoon of the second day Hartley picked up a daily paper, and as is always a sea captain’s wont, glanced over the shipping news.
He gave a sudden wild start.
“Great whales!” he gasped; “just look at this.”