Glennie was deeply touched. At the beginning of the cruise there had been some hard feelings between him and Dick and Carl, but as they had come to know each other better the unpleasantness had worn away.
All four of the lads were now loyal friends, having undergone perils and dangers shoulder to shoulder, and so each had tried the other's and had not found them wanting.
At Acapulco Matt was confidently expecting to receive a message from Captain Nemo, Jr. In this, however, he was disappointed. There was no message for him. Matt could not understand the reason and was prone to think dire things.
"Captain Nemo, Jr., would surely have answered that message I sent him from Panama," said Matt, "providing he had received it."
"Sure he would," agreed Glennie; "and the fact that you did not get an answer is proof that the captain did not receive your message."
"Aber vy ditn't he receif id?" asked Carl.
"That's the point that alarms me, friends," went on Matt gloomily. "You know we left the captain sick at Belize; too ill, in fact, to come with us on the Grampus. We haven't heard a word from him since the cruise began, and it may be that his sickness terminated fatally."
This thought cast a depression over the motor boys. Captain Nemo, Jr., was a good friend of theirs, and all of them liked him. The Grampus was the triumph of the captain's career, and if he was to be stricken down just as the boat, in charge of the motor boys, was to pass successfully through the Golden Gate, the elation Matt and his friends would otherwise feel must give way to dejection and sorrow.
The victory of this successful cruise was entirely theirs, but the loss of Captain Nemo, Jr., would rob the victory of all pleasure for them.
But the gloom that accompanied the submarine from Acapulco northward was lost in rejoicing at San Diego; for no sooner had the Grampus anchored in the bay off the latter place than no less a person than Captain Nemo, Jr., himself, rowed out and came aboard.