Captains Pons and Arco approached the two lads importantly.
"Ze good captain has agreed to go back wiz you and me to ze submarine," announced Captain Pons. "If, w'en we get zere, you will hand ovair ze torpedo, zen we not make ze trouble for you any more. Allons! let us be gone."
The negroes, following an order from the captain of the port, dropped in on either side of Matt and Glennie, their antiquated pistols prominently displayed. Then, with the two captains leading the way, the American lads left the Casa de la Administracion.
"How those Japs managed to get hold of that torpedo without showing themselves," remarked Glennie, on the way to the landing, "is a conundrum."
"They must have come up under the torpedo," answered Matt, "just close enough to the surface to grapple a coil of the rope that was around the steel shell."
"Even on that theory the move is hard to understand. While the Pom was under water it would not be possible for any one aboard of her to work at the ropes around the torpedo."
"Perhaps the grappling was done by manœuvring the boat."
"That might be——"
Glennie was interrupted. By that time the party had nearly reached the landing. Before any of them stepped foot on the wharf, however, there came a loud detonation, and a geyser-like column of water arose high in the air. So lofty was the column that some of the spray from it was hurled across the intervening stretch of the bay and into the faces of Matt, Glennie, and the rest.
When the column had sunk downward, those on the shore could see that the Grampus had disappeared!