CHAPTER XVIII THE BATTLE
Meanwhile, Dave and Doris were warming to the search for the smalltrading boat that had meant so much to Kennedy and Mildred.
Having found the approximate location where the little supply schoonersank, Dave climbed into the steel ball and was lowered into the deep. Foran hour after that, with the steel ball always close to the bottom, theysailed about in ever widening circles. From time to time Doris called onthe radio:
"See anything?"
"Yes, a whole flotilla of jellyfish," would come Dave's laughing answer.Or--"there's an ancient wreck off to the right--goes back to pirate days,I'm sure. But I don't catch the faintest gleam of a white schooner."
When at last he returned to the surface and was released from hisspherical prison, he complained of eye-strain.
"Let me go down with you," Doris pleaded. "I'll be eyes for you. Togetherwe can't fail to find the schooner. We just must get it located!"
"What do you say, professor?" Dave turned to his superior.
"What's the bottom like?"
"All sand."
"No rocks?"
"Not a one."
"O.K., my girl--in you go." The professor waved a hand, and in they went.
To the imaginative Doris, this fairyland of waving seaweed, darting fish,and drifting jellyfish was most entertaining, but she never forgot theirreal mission. "Dave!" she exclaimed more than once. "I see something!" Amoment of excitement, and then--"No--it's nothing but a bit of coral,after all."
Then, of a sudden, a whisper reached her ear:
"One eighty--eighty-two and a half--eighty four--"
"Dave! He's back! The whisperer is back!" Doris spoke before she thought.
"Why! Hello there, mermaid!" came in words startlingly distinct.
Doris and Dave remained silent. Who could this be? Where was he? On land,or in the sea? Or on it?
For a time they heard that whispering of numbers. Then it faded, asabruptly as it had come.
As they drifted, they quietly discussed the strange whispering, but cameto no logical conclusions. Neither did they sight any white schooner,resting on the bottom.
* * * * * * * *
For a long time, there on the side of the hill beneath the tropical sun,Kennedy's fighting band watched and waited.
"The signal will come," Johnny thought with a thrill. "The signal tomove! And then--
"There! There it is now!" he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper.
There had come the distant scream of a wild parrot. One more scream.
"Now!" said Kennedy. "Let's go!"
"We go," old Samatan said, simply.
Johnny would have taken the lead, but the old man pushed him back.Cautiously they moved straight ahead.
Johnny sighed in relief as they reached the end of a narrow pass. That,he thought, would have been a bad place to be caught. His sense of reliefwas short-lived, however, for out from the wide door of the ancientcastle, burst a man with a rifle. Instantly Johnny recognized him as theman whom he had saved from the grip of the octopus.
"Come on!" he exclaimed, as the man leveled his rifle. A shot crackedout, and a bullet burned Johnny's cheek. Next instant the man dodged andthe rifle clattered from his nerveless hands. There had been a flash ofsteel, as Samatan had thrown his machete. Its point was buried in thedoor, just back of the spot where the man's head had been.
Dropping his rifle, Johnny executed a flying tackle, bringing the man tothe ground, with a thud. Instantly two powerful natives pinned him to theearth.
"Come on!" Kennedy shouted, as the door stood open a crack. "We're goingin!" His powerful shoulder forced the door so suddenly that a man on theother side of it was instantly floored. A second man--huge, fat,beast-like--lurched at Kennedy with a knife. He was felled with one blowof the old man's bare fist.
"Now!" Kennedy roared, towering over the prostrate pair. "Tell me wheremy granddaughter is or I'll tear you limb from limb!"
"Girl?" the fat man stammered in broken English. "Gone--gone."
"Where to?" Kennedy touched the man none too gently with his foot. Butthe halting reply could not be understood.
"Please, sir," came in a youthful voice from the corner, "if I may, Iwill tell you.
"But first I must tell you," said the youth who, until now, had not beennoticed, "that I am not one of these!" He nodded at the men on the floor."I was coming to America to join my father, and they compelled me toaccompany them here."
"Is that true?" Kennedy demanded of the stout man on the floor. The mannodded.
"All right. Tell us." Kennedy's voice softened a little as he spoke tothe youth. "Where is my granddaughter?"
"They took her to the submarine," said the boy.
"The submarine?" Kennedy stared.
"Yes. There is a submarine," said the boy. "They are making a survey ofthe sea-bottom around these islands! Don't you see," the boy seemedanxious to please, "in time of war, they shall place depth bombs andsteel nets--and establish submarine bases!"
"I see," Kennedy replied in a low tone that was not good to hear. "Verynice, I should say. We seem to have stumbled into the situation at aboutthe right time!
"But my granddaughter." His voice rose. "She is on this submarine?"
"Yes sir."
"Then," roared Kennedy, "we shall find the submarine! And if we donot--or if my granddaughter has been harmed--!" He laid his machete,sheath and all, across the stout man's throat. And the stout man turned asickish, yellow-green. And not without reason.
"Get up!" commanded Kennedy. The two men stood up. "I'll guard them," hesaid to Johnny. "You and the natives search this place. Gather up everyscrap of paper to be found. There should be ample evidence of thisespionage. And--there is not a moment to be lost!"
"Not a second," said Johnny.
A few hours later, with three other prisoners taken by the second band ofnatives attempting to flee from the rear of the castle, they were back atthe Kennedy cottage. At once Johnny and Samatan prepared to leave for the_Sea Nymph_.
"We'll do all in our power to find that submarine," Johnny assuredKennedy, as he and Samatan pushed off....
But Johnny could not have known, of course that the submarine had beenfound....
* * * * * * * *
For a long time Doris had watched the sea bottom as the steel ball movedabout in a circle that ever grew wider. So absorbed had she become thather ear-phones were forgotten. When suddenly a voice broke in on herthoughts, she jumped involuntarily.
"Hey, there! I say, there! Are you there?" came in a hoarse, anxiousvoice. "Listen! It's important! Listen! Are you there?"
Doris adjusted her microphone, then answered, as her heart missed a beat."Yes, we are here. Why?"
"Listen!" came in gutteral tones. "We are on the bottom, and we can't getup!"
"Try the Australian crawl," Doris laughed into her speaker. These peoplewere good at kidding, whoever they were.
"Listen!" came in a man's voice, hoarse and insistent--even pleading. "Weare in a small submarine. We are on bottom and our pumps have failed!"
"Submarine!" Doris whispered, as she and Dave gaped at each other.
"We are about two hundred feet down," the voice went on, desperately."Something's gone wrong with our pumps, and we can't blow out the waterin our compartments. You gotta help us. We have a friend of yours hereand she'll tell you I'm speaking the truth!"
Doris and Dave were startled beyond description when they heard MildredKennedy's voice coming over the air.
"Listen, Doris," the girl's voice was tense with emotion. "I'm down herein this submarine. I blundered onto that ancient castle up on the ridge,and there were spies there. They wouldn't let me go because they--theysaid I'd tell what I saw. And that--that's true. I would!
"But these boys on the submarine--they--" her voice broke a little,"they're not really spies! They're just boys in the navy of theircountr
y, doing what they're ordered to do. They've been decent to me, andthey'd have put me back on land if they'd dared. So--so you can't letthem die like this. You just can't, Doris! Besides, I--" she choked, andcould not finish.
"We won't let them die and most of all--we won't let _you_ die!" declaredDave, who had been absorbing every word. "Just you keep cool and standby. We--we'll have our whole navy here in no time. Just you see!"
"Th--thanks, Dave ... Mil--Mildred, signing off," came in a wee smallvoice.
"Gee, she's a game kid," whispered Dave to Doris. Then into hismicrophone:
"Put that man on again," he said.
"Here, here I am," came the hoarse voice from the submarine.
"Here's what we'll do," Dave said, shortly.
"We have a fairly powerful wireless on our ship. We'll get in touch withthe United States Naval Station at Port au Prince at once, and report thesituation. They will send assistance--even though you're over here tohelp your spies! Now--give me your location--in code."
"O.K." the foreigner answered, humbly, "Here it is. 2 - 4 - 7, 9 - 3 - 6,1 - 6 - 3 - 9, 3 - 7 - 9.--That is all. Will you please repeat?"
Dave read the numbers he had written, and the sub commander checked themagain.
"Don't be nervous or frightened about the girl, here," he said. "We haveoxygen enough for thirty-six hours, at least."
"I hate to think what would happen to you if any harm comes to her," Daveanswered, grimly. "We're signing off and going up."
To get the Port au Prince naval station was only a matter of moments,after the steel ball was back on board.
"There's a submarine and a coastguard cutter at Santiago de Cuba," wasthe answer. "We will get in touch with them at once, and you can be sureof fast action!"
After a short wait came the encouraging news: "Submarine and cutterproceeding to the rescue under forced draft!"
Fifteen minutes later the _Sea Nymph_ was in motion. Dave, havingobtained the grounded submarine's location, would sail to the spot andstand by to aid, if possible.
"Perhaps we'll go down in the steel ball and reach them before that subarrives," he said.
"But Dave!" Doris exclaimed. "What can one submarine do for another onthe bottom? Surely they can't raise it!"
"No--o, they couldn't. Nor could we. But then," Dave sighed, "there mustbe some way. We'll have to leave that to the navy, I guess."
Two hours later the steel ball rested on the sandy bottom some twohundred feet down, and within twenty feet of the submarine's dark bulk.As Dave and Doris stared out of their window, they saw a face in a portof the submarine. It was Mildred, and she was waving at them.
"Only twenty feet," Doris murmured, "and yet for the moment there'snothing we can do! How strange--and how--how terrible!"