He took a hold lower down. Tom's eyes were dim now, and he could not see well. Some of the men were unconscious.
Then, suddenly, there was a loud, breaking sound, and something tinkled on the steel floor of the submarine engine room. It was the heads of the bolts which Koku had torn loose. Like hail they fell about the giant, and in another instant the big man had pulled loose the machine, weighing several hundreds of pounds. In another moment he shoved it across the floor, toward the elevated side of the craft.
For a second or two nothing happened. Then slowly, very slowly, the M. N. 1 began to heel over.
"She's turning!" some one gasped.
An instant later, freed by this turning motion from the grip of the sand bank, the submarine shot to the surface. Up and up she went, breaking out on the open sea as a great fish darts upward from the hidden depths.
It was the work of only a few seconds for the man nearest it to open the hatch, and then in rushed the life-giving air. Tom and his companions were saved, and by Koku's strength.
"Me say him machine got to come up—him come up!" said the giant, smiling in happy fashion, when, after they had all gulped down great mouthfuls of the precious oxygen, they were talking of their experience.
"Yes, you certainly did it," said Tom, and due credit was given to Koku.
"Never again will I travel without a gyroscope," declared Tom. "I'm almost ready to go back and have one installed now."
"No, don't!" exclaimed the gold-seeker. "We are almost at the place of the wreck."