"I'm hoping, old ship," said he to Matt, "that we'll be able to leave the Japs behind, this time, for good and all. Those on the Pom must have seen us while we had their craft under our search light, and I guessed good and hard why they didn't turn and send another torpedo at us. I didn't know, you see, that they only had two Whiteheads to their blessed name. We could have pulled their fangs if we had opened up that torpedo and took out the dynamite."
"I intended," answered Matt, "to take the torpedo aboard through one of our tubes as soon as we reached this harbor, but the captain of the port came down on us before I had the chance."
"How did you find out about that submarine, and the Japs being in charge of her?"
Matt straightened out this point to his chum's satisfaction. That part of Matt's recital which had to do with the Jap who had been captured under the wharf was particularly interesting to Dick.
"Those fellows don't care a rap for their own lives," muttered Dick, "and that's what makes 'em such nasty fighters. When that fellow got out through the Pom's torpedo tube, he must have come up directly under the Whitehead. By hugging the torpedo close, he could have got his head out of water without any of us on the Grampus seeing him. But he took long chances, just the same, and there are only four Japs left to navigate the other craft. The work probably calls for all hands, and there's bound to be a time when the Pom can't run for lack of hands to navigate her. The Japs are only human, and they'll have to have a spell of rest like every one else."
"We've got a good chance to show them our heels," said Matt, "and it's our duty to make the most of it."
"I'm a Fiji, though," said Dick, "if I don't hate to run away from those Sons of the Rising Sun. It looks as though the United States and Great Britain had struck their colors to the yellow rascals."
"I feel the same way, Dick, but this submarine is worth a hundred thousand dollars, and we're only her trustees. It's our duty not to take any chances with her."
"Right-o, matey. I understand that just as well as you do. Captain Nemo, Jr., ought to give you a good slice of that hundred thousand when you tie up the Grampus at the navy-yard wharf."
"I'm not looking for that, Dick," returned Motor Matt earnestly. "It's the idea of making good that appeals to me beyond anything and everything else. It isn't so much the money that comes to us for what we do, but the way we toe the scratch that counts."