CHAPTER VI.
VILLAINOUS WORK.
Gaines and Ah Sin were also sleeping in the torpedo room. As soon asClackett had left, Matt bent down over the Chinaman and shook himroughly. The Celestial started up and stared blankly into the sternface of the young motorist.
"Wha'chee want?" he asked.
"Is this yours?" inquired Matt, producing the chopstick and studyingthe Chinaman's face attentively as he did so.
The brim of the old slouch hat--which the yellow man had kept on whilesleeping--shaded his eyes, so that Matt's view was not as good as hewould have liked to have it. So far as Matt could discover, not ashadow of guilt crossed Ah Sin's face. Thrusting one hand into thebreast of his blouse he drew out the mate to the chopstick Matt washolding, a grateful grin split his countenance, and he caught the pieceof ebony out of Matt's hand.
"Me losee um, huh?" he chuckled. "My no savvy how me losee um."
"Go up the hatch to the periscope room," ordered Matt.
If Ah Sin was surprised at the command he cloaked his feelingsadmirably.
Without a word he left the torpedo room, climbed to the deck above, andgained the periscope chamber. Matt pounded on the door of Glennie'squarters, and the ensign quickly opened the door.
"What's wanted?" he asked.
"Take this Chinaman in there with you, Mr. Glennie," said Matt, "andwatch him."
"What's he been doing?"
"I don't know that he's been doing anything. I just want him watched,that's all, and you can do it better than any one else."
Glennie stared for a moment, then jerked the Chinaman inside and closedthe door.
As Matt turned away, he was conscious of the steady song of thecylinders. Again the motor had taken up its cycle properly--proof thatthe gasolene secured by Dick in Port-of-Spain was of the right sort.
"I'll take the wheel, Speake," said Matt. "Go to the torpedo room andturn in."
"What was wrong with the motor?" queried Speake, as he gave up thewheel.
"Water in the carburetor."
"Chink put it there?"
"Why should he do that?" returned Matt.
"That's too much for me, Matt, unless he did it by mistake, same as heexploded the gas in that reserve tank."
"I don't know how the water got in the tank, Speake, and it may havebeen accident quite as much as design."
Speake left Matt to his lonely vigil. The gleam of the littlesearchlight, reaching out ahead of the submarine, flung an odd pictureon the periscope mirror. The edges of the mirror were shrouded indarkness, out of which jumped the smooth, oily billows. The wavesflashed like gold in the pencil of light.
Matt, holding the _Grampus_ to her course, looked into the periscopeabsently. He was thinking of the motor's recent trouble, and of thechopstick lying by the gasolene tank, turning both over in his mind andwondering aimlessly.
Suddenly he lifted his head. An odd note was mixing itself with thecroon of the motor and the whir of the ventilator fans. The noise wasnot caused by anything aboard the submarine, of that Matt was positive.It was like the thrashing of a large propeller, growing rapidly involume as Matt listened.
Under water sounds are carried far. The noise Matt heard was caught bythe submerged hulk of the _Grampus_ and re?choed as by a sounding-board.
"Half-speed, Dick," he called through the engine-room tube.
As the pace slackened, Matt's eyes again sought the periscope mirror.Abruptly, out of the gloom that walled in the glow of the searchlight,rushed a steamer, its blotted outline crossing directly the submarine'scourse. There were lights along the steamer's rail, but it was plainher lookouts were asleep or they would have seen the _Grampus'_searchlight.
Instantly the young motorist was galvanized into strenuous activity.
"Full speed astern--on your life!" he shouted to Dick.
At the same time Matt put the wheel over, hoping to make a turn and getthe _Grampus_ on a parallel course with the steamer.
But there was not room, nor time, enough for the turn. Unless the motorstayed the _Grampus_ she was bound to crash into the other vessel.
Dick, however, got the propeller to turning the other way just at thecritical moment. The speed of the submarine slackened in answer to thereverse pull, and the stern of the steamer swung by into the gloom witha margin of scarce a dozen feet, leaving the _Grampus_ bobbing in hertroubled wake.
"All right now, Dick," called Matt in a voice that shook somewhat."Drive her ahead."
"What was wrong?" inquired Dick.
"We just missed a collision with a steamer. Your quick work saved us."
Dick gave a long whistle, and went on with his work. "A miss is as goodas a hundred fathoms, old ship," he answered lightly.
The ringing orders and quick work with the engine had aroused none ofthe sleepers. Carl could be heard babbling excitedly in the tank room,but otherwise the ship's complement was quiet.
It was with a distinct feeling of relief that Matt caught the firstgleam of day as it was reflected by the periscope. As the morningadvanced and brightened, he raised a black smudge, as of steamer smoke,on the port quarter. The smoke was bearing along in the direction thesubmarine was going, and Matt wondered if that was the steamer they hadbarely missed running into during the night.
Gaines relieved Dick, Clackett took Carl's place, and Speake came afterAh Sin and ordered him below to get breakfast. When the Chinaman wasfairly at work, Speake returned to the engine room and took the wheel.Glennie showed himself when breakfast was ready, and he, Matt, Dick,Carl, and Speake ate their breakfast in the periscope room.
"We must be off British Guiana," remarked Glennie, stirring thecondensed milk and sugar into his coffee. "Will you put in atGeorgetown, Mr. King?"
"We won't have to do that, now that we've picked you up atPort-of-Spain," replied Matt. "We've got to make quick time to theAmazon."
"Iss dot shdeamer der vone ve come pooty near running indo lasdtnight?" queried Carl, taking a look into the periscope.
"It's about an even guess whether it is or not."
Ah Sin, who happened to be in the room, took a look at the periscopefor himself.
"Did we come near having a collision last night?" queried Glennie,looking up quickly.
Matt, who wished to be agreeable, narrated the incident.
"We made a lucky miss of it," remarked the ensign, when Matt hadfinished. "I've no desire to go to the bottom in a steel sarcophaguslike the _Grampus_. Strange I slept through it all, but I was tired,and I suppose I slept rather sounder than usual. That chink," he added,putting down his cup, "is a poor coffee-maker. Or is it the coffeeitself that tastes so rank?"
"It's poor stuff," spoke up Speake, "an' I was jest goin' to saysomething about the taste. The chink did better yesterday than he'sdoin' this mornin'."
"Id purns ven id goes town, like id vas a dorch-light brocession,"observed Carl luminously. "I don'd like dot, but I vas hungry, so Itrink him. Whoosh!"
"It's certainly hot and bitter," said Matt, and put down his cup aftertwo or three swallows.
"That steamer is gettin' closer to us, Matt," announced Speake,fumbling with the wheel and looking at the periscope.
"Steady, there, Speake!" cautioned Matt.
"I don't know what's the matter with me," muttered Speake, "but mynerves are all in a quiver. She's small, that steamer; one funnel,black, with a red band. I don't jest recollect what line--that--is."
He drawled out the last words.
"Py shiminy grickets!" said Carl, "I feel sick py der shdomach, undeferyt'ing iss virling und virling."
"Dowse me," put in Dick, "I'm dizzy, too!"
"And I," murmured Glennie, setting aside his plate and empty cup. "I--Ibelieve I'll lie down."
He got up from the stool on which he was sitting, and floundered to thetop of the locker. Pushing a hand around to his hip pocket, he drew outa revolver that interfered with his comfort, dropped it on the floor,and fell back limply.
Dick tried to get to his feet, but
his limbs gave out, and he fellsprawling upon Carl. At the same moment Carl straightened out with agasp, and Speake let go of the wheel and pitched forward to his knees.There he swayed unsteadily for an instant, trying to speak, but theeffort was beyond him, and he slowly crumpled downward.
A horrible sensation of helplessness was growing upon Matt, and withit there dawned on his mind a hazy suspicion of villainous work. Hestruggled upright and staggered to the wheel.
"Gaines!" he called huskily through the motor-room tube.
No answer was returned. Glennie floundered up on one knee.
"What--in the fiend's--name--is the matter?" he gasped chokingly.
"Clackett!" cried Matt through the tank-room tube.
Still there was no answer. At just that moment, when Matt waspositively sure that all on the ship were caught in the awful spell, AhSin shambled through the door.
With all his failing strength Matt flung himself on the Chinaman.Before Ah Sin could dodge out of the way Matt's arms went round him andhis slouch hat was jerked off.
With the hat came the long queue, leaving Ah Sin's closely cropped headin plain sight.
"T--Tolo!" gurgled Glennie, a wild, incredulous look crossing his face.
He made a superhuman effort to get off the locker, but the lastparticle of strength left him in a flash, and he rolled backward.