CHAPTER XX.
A NAVAL ENCOUNTER.
“Jack, this is glorious!”
“You may well say that, Tom. I’m enjoying myself as much as if I were on a vacation.”
At twenty-five knots an hour the White Shark was cutting along on her voyage to the south. The sea was smooth, but it rippled just enough for the brisk, salt-laden breeze to blow an occasional shower of brine over the two lads standing on the rounded back of the novel submarine craft.
It was the morning of the second day out. So far everything had gone without a hitch. The machinery was running so smoothly that Silas Hardtack had been left on watch in the engine room, while the boys came up on deck to inhale a whiff of the fresh sea breeze.
Mr. Chadwick was busy over some problems connected with a new type of threshing machine he was evolving for the use of the government in experimental work. Jupe was busy in his galley. From time to time, through a ventilator which was kept open while the White Shark was on the surface in fair weather, there floated up to the boys the rattle of dishes and the appetizing smells of the dinner that Jupe was preparing.
“I’ve got an appetite like a horse, Jack.”
“So have I. Nothing like what poets call the ‘balmy breeze’ to give you that.”
Through the open hatchway appeared another figure, that of Silas Hardtack. The old man was a practical navigator, and as he came on deck he brought with him his sextant.
“Eight bells,” he announced, “I’m going to shoot the sun.”