"If you are certain, send her aboard."
Lines were lowered and hooks fastened to the fairy craft. As they tightened on the polished brass rings in her bow and stern, a deafening roar told the fate of the Covodonga. She was cut completely in two and only sixty of her crew were picked up and saved.
The little boat had been made with a thin false bottom in which was placed a quantity of nitro-glycerine. The friction pins were connected with the brass rings and the moment her weight was on them the pins were pulled out and the explosive discharged.
It may be imagined that after such costly experiences, the Chileans redoubled their watchfulness. They would not approach anything seen floating on the water; but turned their guns on whatever they saw at long range. They were known to fire at a seal that had wandered away from its usual haunts. Paul and his crew were compelled to keep close under cover. The Chileans were daily drawing their lines closer to the doomed city of Lima. Boyton dispatched an officer to Don Nicholas with a request to be sent with his torpedo crew down to Pisco where he expected the Chileans would attempt to laud troops. The answer he received was "Impatience is a bad counselor. Wait for orders."
If Paul had followed his own instincts, he could have knocked two or three Chilean vessels out of the water, for they landed at Pisco a few days later and no very sharp lookout being kept, he might have put torpedoes under them at night.
As the enemy was gradually closing in by land and sea, Paul was ordered to Callao to take charge of a submarine boat that had been built by a Swiss engineer. The boat was to be run by compressed air under water and by steam on the surface. It was a complicated affair and Boyton had but little confidence in it and that confidence was considerably lessened when the inventor himself refused to go down in her. However, it was decided to try her. Having managed all the details of her construction, Boyton ordered her swung under a big pair of shears and from their support hung the boat on chains, so that in case she would not run to the surface by her own power, she could be hoisted by the machinery above. She was then lowered to the water. Paul and two of his crew entered, but before descending to the bottom, gave orders to those manning the shears, to hoist at the expiration of twenty minutes. After fastening the man-hole, the valves were closed. There was an ominous hissing of air that sounded peculiar; but when she got her weight of water, she slowly settled on the mud bottom in twenty-three feet of water.
"Now get at your compressed air and see how she will go on the bottom," said Paul to the engineer as soon as they felt they were down.
She wheezed and groaned and moved slightly on the mud; but she refused to rise. Groping about with his lantern, the engineer found something was the matter with the valves as lie could not get one of them to work and he grew excited. He was advised to keep cool as there was no danger but they would get out all right. For five or six minutes, which seemed an hour to the men thus caught in a trap, they tried every possible way to get the machinery to work; but it was useless. The boat refused to rise. The oxygen became rapidly exhausted and the lights grew dim. Even the valve supplying fresh air for the nostrils of the occupants of the boat would not work and the situation grew more desperate with the flight of every second. As the atmosphere became oppressively heavy, Boyton wanted to knock the valve off with a hammer; but the engineer showed him if that were done, they would be drowned.
It began to dawn on the minds of the three men that they were doomed. They sat and looked into one another's pale faces. Paul consulted his watch and estimated that twelve more minutes must elapse before those above would haul up. He felt that it would be impossible for them to last so long for already they were beginning to gasp for lack of air. They became weak; but again tried the valves to no purpose. The least exertion exhausted them. One of the lanterns flickered out and the other was very dim.
At last Paul seized a hammer and going up the little iron ladder, struck three or four blows on the cover of the man-hole, under the impression that those above might hear. The effort was too much for him and he fell to the floor where he laid in an almost unconscious condition. He dimly remembered hearing the straining of chains, then the man-hole was opened and a voice inquired: "How is it?"