"What's the matter?" he asked, ranging alongside his chum.
"An overturned boat," gasped Dick. "I saw it in a trough of the waves just as the periscope cleared—and there were men lashed to the bottom!"
"Positive of that?" returned Matt, fixing his eyes on the mirror.
"Watch, matey, and mayhap you'll see them for yourself."
Just then the periscope ball shook itself free of the waves, and the tumbling sea lay under Matt's eyes. As the darkness was lighted by a glare of lightning, the young motorist was thrilled by the vivid glimpse thus given him of the overturned boat. It was about a hundred feet away on the starboard side, and, at that moment, was being hurled high on the top of a comber. There were five dripping forms on the boat's bottom—Matt saw that much before another wave drenched the periscope ball.
Whirling away, he turned to the motor-room tube.
"Is Glennie or Carl down there?" he shouted.
"Glennie's helping me," answered Gaines, "and Carl's with Clackett."
"Send 'em both up here on the jump."
"What're you going to try to do?" demanded Speake, as Matt began throwing coils of light, strong rope out of the locker.