"It does," asserted Townsend. "I have lain a prisoner in that old bank vault for two days, and the inconvenience and discomfort I have been put to I shall not soon forget; but Jurgens and Whistler have been beaten at their own game. Besides, my lads, it was, on the whole, a good thing that Bangs worked his little game successfully. If he hadn't, I should have opened that iron chest in the home of a lady on St. Charles Avenue, and who knows what the consequences would have been? Jurgens and Bangs first tested the deadly effluvia of the idol's head, and we were able to profit by their experience. Yes, it is best to leave them here and allow them to recover and go their ways. The knowledge that they are beaten will be punishment enough for them."
Having settled the matter in this way, Townsend and the boys passed the prostrate forms in the other room, gained the apartment at the head of the stairs, blew out the candle and went away.
Fifteen minutes later they were on the levee; and ten minutes after that they were boarding the Grampus and slipping down under her decks through the top of the conning tower.
[CHAPTER XVI.]
DIAMONDS GALORE.
Before Carl climbed downward through the conning tower of the Grampus, he shook the fragments of the idol's head out of his coat upon the rounded deck of the submarine and heard them glide off and splash into the water.
"Dere vill be some foolishness among der fishes, I bed you!" he chuckled; "aber, all der same, it vas goot-py to Obboney! Und may nodding like him efer come oudt oof Africa again."
Cassidy, mate of the Grampus, was the only one of the crew aboard. He had had no idea of the perils through which Townsend had passed, nor of the troubles encountered by the boys. He knew, of course, that the boys had arrived, for all up and down the river front the Hawk was the topic of conversation.
In the conning tower of the Grampus, that evening, there was a spread. Cassidy opened canned goods and made coffee on an alcohol stove. The guests at the "feed" sat around with their tin plates in their laps, and while they ate they talked over recent exciting events.