"Why are you making fast, matey?" inquired Dick.
"Because I want to tow this torpedo into Lota," answered Matt.
"Oh, bother that! Here we've been all ahoo thinking you were at the bottom and as good as done for. Now that we've found you again—and in a most amazing way, at that—cut loose from that steel tube and come aboard. What's the use of fussing with it?"
"I'll explain when I come aboard," Matt went on. "Make the other end of the line fast, Dick, and give the cable a scope of fifty feet. I've hooked to her so that she will follow us stern foremost."
Glennie helped Dick make the cable fast; then Matt, drawing in on the line, came alongside the rounded deck plates, and Carl helped him off the torpedo.
"Ach, vat a habbiness!" sputtered Carl. "I hat gifen you oop for deadt, Matt, und vat shouldt I efer have done mitoudt my bard? How you come to be like dot, hey?"
"There's something mighty mysterious about it," said Matt. "I thought I heard a noise somewhere in the darkness behind the Grampus, and stepped aft to watch and listen; then, before I knew what was up, the noose of a rope fell over my head and tightened about my throat. I went into the water with hardly a splash, unable to give a cry for help."
"I didn't hear a sound!" put in Speake excitedly.
"It was all done so quickly and silently, I don't see how you could have known anything about it, Speake," said Matt. "I was in a bad way when I sighted that torpedo. I got astride of it, started the propellers, and rode in the direction the Grampus had taken. When the compressed air gave out, I was expecting to be picked up by some other boat—by the boat that had fired the torpedo at us."
"At us!" exclaimed Glennie. "Do you mean to say that torpedo that saved you was launched at the Grampus?"