CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE SUPREME TEST.
"Open the side window panel and turn on the searchlight!"
The order came from Mr. Barr five minutes after the _Peacemaker_ struck.Naturally enough, everyone on board was seriously alarmed; but in theface of danger the Boy Scouts took their example for action from thenaval officer and the inventor.
Although deadly pale, Mr. Barr kept his voice as cool as an icicle.Ensign Hargreaves, while fully realizing the danger, yet steeled himselfto calmness; and both Rob and Merritt simulated the courage of theirelders.
Rob hastened to obey Mr. Barr's command. After a few seconds ofmanipulation the slide drew back, exposing the large plate glass panel.To bring the powerful searchlight into play was the work of but amoment.
As its white rays pierced the gloomy depths of the ocean like a scimitarof light, all on board peered intently from the panel and strove to makeout what it was that the diving boat had struck.
At first nothing could be seen but the dark water with myriads of fishswarming about the bright light, which appeared to attract them as mothsare attracted to an arc light.
"Swing the light," ordered Mr. Barr; "bring it to bear a little moreforward."
Rob obeyed, and the ray of light swung in an arc through the obscurityoutside of the _Peacemaker_. All at once, with a sharp exclamation, Robstopped it.
"Look! look!" he cried, pointing from the window.
They looked and saw before them what appeared to be a steep acclivity,ribbed and rocky as a mountain side. It was against this submerged cliffthat the _Peacemaker_ had struck.
"That submarine cliff appears to be of a soft formation," declared theensign after a brief scrutiny; "our bow has driven into it."
"Then we are doomed to remain here?" asked Merritt with a bit of aquiver in his voice.
"Not necessarily. It's up to us now to do all we can to extricateourselves."
"But how?"
The question came from Rob, whose voice, try as he would, persisted infaltering. It was an awful feeling to experience, this of being pennedscores of fathoms beneath the ocean's surface in a diving boat.
"Well, I have a plan in mind. It is a desperate one, but possibly it maywork."
"What do you propose to do?"
This time it was the inventor who propounded the query. Clearly enoughMr. Barr himself could think of no way out of the quandary.
"I don't care to say just yet," responded the naval officer.
"Why not?"
"Because it is a sort of forlorn hope that I don't care to advocateuntil absolute necessity arises."
In the dire extremity into which they were plunged, not one of themcared just then to waste time by asking questions. Clearly Uncle Sam'sofficer was at the head of affairs. In silence they awaited his nextword.
"Rob, you must reverse the engines. Give them all the power they willstand. It's just possible that we may be able to back out withoutinjury, although I fear that we are pretty deeply buried in this cliff."
Rob, accompanied by Merritt, hastened to obey. Together the two boysentered the engine room, and Rob at once operated the mechanism whichcaused the _Peacemaker_ to go backward.
As he pulled over the lever and the engines began to whirr and buzz,everyone on the boat waited breathlessly for the result. But the_Peacemaker_ did not move. Under the strain of her laboring engines thesteel fabric shook and chattered, but not an inch did the diving boatbudge.
Rob and Merritt exchanged despairing glances.
"Can't you get any more power out of her?" asked Merritt anxiously.
Rob shook his head.
"Not a bit more, old man. She's running at her utmost now."
"Then we're stuck?"
"It looks that way."
"And we're doomed to die right here unless the nose of the boat can begot out of that cliff!"
"Never say, 'die,' Merritt. We've done the best we can, and remember theensign said that he had a plan if all else failed."
"Yes, 'a forlorn hope' he called it."
"In a case like this we can endure anything. Desperate situationsrequire desperate means to solve them."
As the young Scout leader spoke, Ensign Hargreaves burst into the engineroom.
The engines were still whirring and buzzing, and the hull of the_Peacemaker_ was quivering under their powerful stress.
"Have you developed every ounce of power they are capable of?" asked thenaval officer.
"Yes, sir," responded Rob respectfully; "they can't do anotherrevolution."
The officer looked anxious.
"In that case, we shall have to resort to my forlorn hope," he said.
"And what is that, sir?" asked Rob, his heart beating uncomfortablyfast.
"Come forward and you shall see."
The ensign turned and swung out of the engine room, followed closely bytwo anxious boys, Rob having waited only to shut off the engines.
In the main cabin Mr. Barr, his face white and strained, sat on one ofthe leather divans.
He looked up as the boys and the naval officer entered.
"The engines won't back her out?" he asked in a voice harsh and roughfrom anxiety.
"No. I'm sorry, Barr, but we're in a mighty bad fix. This submarinecliff must be of a sort of blue clay formation that is common off thiscoast. We have apparently driven into it so far that nothing short of anearthquake would dislodge us."
"An earthquake?"
"Yes; such a spasm of nature alone can set us free."
"Then we are doomed to remain here."
"Not of necessity; we have still a chance of escape."
"What do you mean?"
"That my plan offers a mere chance."
"Then let us not delay in putting it into execution."
"But it is a dangerous one!"
"Never mind that. Nothing could be more serious than our presentpredicament."
"Very well then, we will try out my idea. It's our last chance."
"Our last chance!" The words sounded to the boys almost like a requiem.Plainly enough, whatever Ensign Hargreaves' plan might be, there weredangers attached to it, and no light dangers, either, to judge from hisgrave tones. Eagerly they awaited his next words.
"My plan is nothing more nor less than this," he said; "I propose tocreate an earthquake."
"To _create_ an earthquake!" Mr. Barr echoed the words, staring at theensign as if he thought he had gone suddenly insane.
"Precisely. I intend to produce by artificial means an eruption whichwill destroy enough of this cliff to set us free, or else blow the_Peacemaker_ herself into atoms."
Mr. Barr buried his head in his hands. Skillful inventor and scientificexpert though he was, the last words of the naval officer had sappedeven his iron courage.
"Is there no other way?"
"No other way. It's a gamble for our lives."
"What do you propose doing?" asked Mr. Barr in a strange, broken voice.
"As I said, to create an artificial earthquake."
"I am unable to follow you."
"Then I'll make it clearer. In the torpedo compartment forward you havesix Red Head torpedoes fully charged with gun cotton?"
"Yes."
The inventor was regarding the naval officer with intense interest now,and the boys also stood transfixed, their eyes riveted on the ensign ashe unfolded his plan.
"What I propose to do," he continued, "is to discharge from the sidetorpedo tubes two torpedoes. They will be aimed at the cliff and, ofcourse, when they strike it, will explode."
"But in that case our bow would be blown off also, and we should perishalmost instantly," declared Mr. Barr.
"Wait a minute. I didn't say we would discharge them _directly_ at thecliff. What I propose doing is this: We will aim one on each side of thespot where our bow drove in, taking care to train the tubes so that thetorpedoes will not strike too near."
"Yes, the tubes are movable. That is one of the features of the_Peacemaker_."
&
nbsp; "Very well, then, they will be as easy to train in any desired directionas a rapid fire gun."
"Exactly. But I never thought when I designed them that I might some dayowe my life to that very feature."
"Well, we are by no means out of the woods yet," responded the ensigndrily.
He led the way to the forward torpedo room. This was right in the bow ofthe boat and most of the space was occupied by odd-looking machinery.Wheels, worm gears and strange-looking levers were everywhere. At thefarthest end of the steel-walled chamber was a sort of derrickcontrivance. This was the piece of machinery used to raise the torpedoesand swing them into the tubes.
Like the other machinery on the _Peacemaker_, the derrick was operatedby electricity. A pull of a lever and Mr. Barr had set its machinery inmotion. The torpedoes were placed on racks so that it was a simplematter to secure them to the lifting chain of the derrick. First one andthen another of the polished steel implements of deadly warfare wereraised to the mouths of the torpedo tubes which projected into thechamber.
Despite their immense weight, the torpedoes were placed within the tubeswith no more difficulty than a sportsman experiences in shoving twocartridges into the breech of his gun.
In ten minutes from the time the party entered the torpedo chamber, thesteel implements of death had been "rammed home" and the breech of thetubes clamped and fastened. On the _Peacemaker_ type of submarinecompressed air at an enormous pressure was used to give the torpedoes astart, although, of course, they contained the usual machinery withinthemselves to drive them through the water after they left the tubes.
There followed a moment of suspense as the compressed air, with ahissing sound, rushed into the tubes.
Mr. Barr, deadly pale but without a tremor in his voice, announced thatall was ready.
The ensign merely nodded and began to operate a worm gear which swungthe tubes at an acuter angle to the body of the submarine vessel.
"I think we are all right now," he said presently.
"Very well," spoke the inventor, his hand on a lever, "when you say theword, I'll discharge the torpedoes."
"You might as well do it right now," was the response.
The inventor, with hands that shook, swung the lever back.
There was a hissing sound and a slight tremor as the compressed air shotthe torpedoes from the tubes. Less than a second later, simultaneouslyit seemed, the submarine was rocked and swayed by a terrific convulsion.The boys and their elders were thrown right and left with a force thatalmost knocked them senseless.
It was but a few moments after the explosion of the two torpedoes thatEnsign Hargreaves uttered a shout that thrilled them all.
"We're rising!" he cried. "My plan succeeded after all!"
"I think that we ought to give thanks to Providence," said Mr. Barrreverently. "As the ensign has said, the plan succeeded, but it wastaking one chance in a thousand. Had that cliff not been shaken so as torelease us, we might have perished miserably and left our fate amystery."
The boys were in the conning tower by the conclusion of Mr. Barr'swords. The barograph showed them to be rising a hundred feet a minute.No words were exchanged between the two young Scouts, but each graspedthe other's hand in a firm grip and gazed into the other's eyes. Therewas no necessity of speech. Both realized that they had passed throughthe gravest peril that even they had experienced in all theiradventurous lives.
When the _Peacemaker_ reached the surface once more, the storm hadsubsided. With their hearts full of deep gratitude for the miraculouschance that had saved their lives, her occupants headed the speedydiving craft back for the island at top speed. The _Peacemaker_ had beenthrough the supreme test and had not been found lacking.
"I tell you what, Barr," declared Ensign Hargreaves, as they neared thefamiliar island, "you have the most wonderful boat on earth, and UncleSam has _got_ to have it. My report goes in to Washington to-morrow andyou can guess what it will contain."
"Thank you," said the inventor simply, extending his hand.