Now Jacob Farnum rang for the reversing of the engine, and the submarine, first pausing, began to glide backward, then stopped altogether.
From the steam yacht went up another hoarse cheer, the mutineers dancing like demons, discharging their revolvers into the air. All this while the yacht steamed steadily away from the scene.
The girl was sinking for the second time as Jack Benson, with a forward swoop, shot one arm under her.
"You won't go down now," he called, cheerily. "Keep cool and just do what I ask you."
The older woman, buoyed up by a greater spread of skirts, had not sunk below the surface at all by the time that Hal Hastings reached her.
"All just as it ought to be," hailed Hal, blithely. "Don't be at all afraid, madam. Porpoise is my middle name, and you can't sink while I have you."
The work of the two Naval officers who had plunged overboard was easier. Both of the men who had leaped from the yacht's stern rail were able to swim. Briscoe and McCrea merely reached them and swam alongside.
David Pollard had ropes over the side of the submarine in a jiffy. It was easy work for seafaring men to climb these ropes over the sloping, easy side. It was scarcely more difficult to get the women up in safety.
"Let the ladies go below to the port stateroom," called Mr. Farnum.
"They can disrobe, rub down and get in between blankets in the berths.
Their men folks can take care of 'em."
"I'm the steward, sir, of the 'Selma,' the yacht that's ahead," explained the man in white duck. "I'll help them below at once, sir."