CHAPTER XV
THE COURAGE THAT RANG TRUE
In that first awful moment after he was left alone, Jack Benson's first feeling was that it must all be an unbelievable dream.
Yet he knew that it was not. In his frenzy he tugged at the handcuffs, fought with the cords that bound him to the stanchion, but all in vain.
The sea-valves had been opened only enough to let the water in slowly. Almost at the outset, however, the keel slanted downward, for most of the water was coming into the tanks the bow of the boat.
"Help! Help, quick!" roared Benson at the top of his voice. The side ports were not open, but the manhole was, and the ventilators were in place. The submarine boy shouted in the hope that the night watchman might hear and reach the scene in time to effect a rescue.
The keel was still more slanting. At the instant when the diving tanks held water enough to overbalance the buoyancy of the craft the "Pollard" was bound to take a sudden lurch and go below.
Still fighting uselessly though frantically at the bonds that held him helpless in this terrible crisis, Jack also kept up his yells.
The watchman did not hear. He was not near enough. Josh Owen, having gained the shore and hauled the rowboat up, fled a short distance, then crouched in hiding, waiting to see the effects of his terrible deed.
Only one other person was in the yard. Grace Desmond, unknown to her employer, had come to the office in the evening, bent on posting up a set of books that were in her care.