"Well, I'll put you where you want to be, of course," agreed the boatbuilder, though he spoke with some reluctance, for he realized that some great mystery underlay this whole affair.
"Come up, Benson, and take the wheel," called Mr. Pollard. So Jack went up and out on the deck, Eph following him, while Hal went to the engine room to watch more of Grant Andrews' work there. Jack threw on the speed wheel, then steered north, while Eph threw the searchlight skyward in the path of the approaching vessel.
Within fifteen minutes the two craft were in sight of each other. Five minutes later they were within hailing distance. The other craft was a schooner of some eighty or ninety tons, and was using an auxiliary gasoline engine.
It was Jack who sounded a signal on the auto whistle for the other craft to lay to. Then Benson steered in closer, the two who had been rescued standing not far from him on the platform deck. The older man still clutched his satchel.
"Submarine, ahoy!" came a hail from the schooner's deck. "Is that you, Mr. Miller?"
"Ye-es," hesitatingly admitted the older man, at which Jacob Farnum smiled grimly, though he said nothing. "Put off a boat and send it alongside, will you?"
In a trice a boat was lowered from the schooner. Manned by two sailors and steered by a deck officer, the boat came alongside the sloping hull of the torpedo boat.
"You weren't expected in such a craft as this, Mr. Miller," called the deck officer in the stern of the small boat, touching his cap.
"Never mind any conversation, my man," broke in young Miller, testily.
"Lay right alongside, and help get my father into your boat."
Hal and Eph helped in piloting Mr. Miller over the side and getting him into the boat alongside. Immediately afterwards the younger man jumped into the small boat.