She was close enough to them to make her bow look like a steel cliff. They could almost hear the roar of her cutwater as it cleaved its way through the sea.
“Come below instantly! Close the panel! It’s our only chance!”
The voice was Mr. Dancer’s. It came from the mouth of the speaking tube situated in the hatch for purposes of communicating with the deck from below.
MR. CHADWICK THREW THE LIFE BELT.
Without stopping to take another look at the huge menace bearing down upon them, the boys, assisted by Silas, picked up the unconscious form of the man they had rescued and carried him below. All this was done with lightning speed. Anxiety, cold panic, made them move like those who dream, but still with promptitude.
As the metal door clanged to Jack shuddered; it sounded almost as if the steel bow of the battleship was cutting into them at the moment, cleaving them in two and sending the White Shark and her crew to an unmarked grave in the bed of the ocean.
The diving boat gave a sickening plunge the next instant. It seemed as if she were making an almost perpendicular dive to the depths. Those in the cabin who had rushed from the deck in the nick of time were thrown in a bruised mass at one end of the main cabin. As for Jupe, only a wild yell proceeded from his regions. He had no idea of what was happening.
It appeared to him that the White Shark was taking her last plunge. It seemed that way to the others, too. Huddled together, they turned white, questioning faces on each other. Not even the unconscious man was more deadly pale.
Nobody spoke, but each knew without resorting to words, of what the other was thinking.