“Did it break?” cried Tom, looking at the rocks on to which they seemed about to crash.
“No. They’re shooting at us!” yelled Bill Tagg. “There they go again!” he added, ducking down into the bottom of the boat.
Tom and Mr. Damon were both occupied with trying to save the Gull from going on the rocks and they could not draw their weapons. The tramp, however, aimed his automatic and sent a couple of answering shots toward the boat containing Ned.
“Look out you don’t hit our friend,” warned Tom, who felt the rudder gradually coming around, so that he had hopes of saving the Gull from a direct crash.
“I fired over their heads,” explained Bill Tagg. “They’re doing the same, I guess—trying to bluff us!” He fired again, high enough to clear those in the fleeing craft, and again came a response. This time the bullet was lower and Tom instinctively ducked, though he knew the missile must have passed him before his ear caught the vicious whine of its passage through the air.
Then, so suddenly that no warning was given, the Gull struck on a rock just beneath the surface. It was a glancing blow, and the rock, luckily, was smooth, or the craft might have been shattered. As it was, the Gull careened to one side, and so sharply that Tom Swift was thrown overboard, landing in the lake with a great splash.
Instinctively, he took a long breath and held it, closing his mouth that had been opened preparatory to shouting further directions to Mr. Damon about reversing the craft.
Down into the depths sank Tom, while the Gull, whose speed was not slackened, slued around from her impact on the rock and shot off on a tangent in a direction directly opposite from that taken by the Turtle, the boat containing the three roughly attired men and that silent, wrapped figure in the bottom—a figure that was supposed to be Ned Newton.
“Bless my steamship ticket!” yelled Mr. Damon, “where’s Tom?”
“Overboard!” yelled the tramp. “And I can’t swim!”