CHAPTER XXVIII
THE LONELY ISLAND
Only an instant was needed for the full meaning of this informationto sink into the minds of all. Jerry and his chums rushed into thecorridor after Ted.
“We must recapture him!” cried Mr. Sheldon. “He is capable of doing allsome terrible harm after what we did to him!”
“How did he get out of the chains?” asked Bob.
“No time to think of that now!” panted Ned. “The question is how to gethim back in them again. Come on, fellows!”
“Grace, go to your stateroom!” commanded her father, quickly. “Theremay be some danger----”
“I’ll look after her,” volunteered Professor Snodgrass.
“All right,” assented Bob’s uncle. They knew they would hardly needProfessor Snodgrass’s assistance in the coming struggle, and it wasbetter to have someone at hand to look after Grace, in case the twoGerman friends of Dr. Klauss should take it into their heads to renderhim aid in his mad project.
All this time (comparatively short, though it may seem long in thetelling) the _Sonderbaar_ was behaving in a peculiar manner. She wasrolling, pitching and tossing, though she continued to sink toward thebottom of the sea on a long slant.
“What’s his game?” queried Jerry.
“We’ll have to stop it, whatever it is,” answered Ted.
They made a rush toward the pilot house, while Professor Snodgrassclosed the door of the cabin containing himself and Grace.
Dr. Klauss, who was still busy manipulating the various levers beforehim, turned at the sound of rushing feet. A sneer showed around hiscruel mouth, and he laughed.
“Ha!” he cried. “You thought you had me a prisoner! But I fooled you!Now who is master? I am going to put an end to all of you. Had you letme alone, you would, at worst, have been but captives. Now you shallall die!”
“Not if we know it!” cried Jerry, bravely.
“Rush him!” yelled Ned, and tragic as the situation was, he couldnot, for the life of him, help thinking that it was like an impendingscrimmage on the football field.
But the refugees were not destined to capture the insane commander aseasily as they had before. With a mocking laugh Dr. Klauss shoved overa lever and the steel sliding door of the pilot house closed. It waslocked from within.
“There!” cried Ted. “Why didn’t I think he’d do that? I should havewedged that door open. Now we can’t get at him!”
“Isn’t there any way of opening the door from the outside?” askedJerry, pausing, crestfallen, with his companions.
“No, he can lock it securely from within,” answered Bill Burke.
“Well, we can’t stop him now!” exclaimed Tom Flynn. “We’ll have tobatter it down. That maniac will send us all to the bottom and keep usthere!”
Indeed there was grave danger of this. The submarine, under theinfluence of the mad commander, was plunging downward at a terrificrate.
“Batter down the door!” cried Tom. “I’ll get a sledge hammer----”
“No!” interrupted Jerry. “We might damage the ship, or spring theplates and cause a leak. Isn’t there any other way?”
“Stop the motors!” cried Ned. “We can do that from the engine room andthen he can’t do us any harm. Disconnect them from the pilot housecontrol.”
“That’s it!” agreed Ted. “Come on, boys!”
The submarine was now rolling at a sickening angle. It was as thoughshe was in the trough of the sea, on top, but the boys knew she wasseveral hundred feet down. A glance at an auxiliary depth gage toldthem that.
“It’s he who is doing it!” cried Ted. “He’s crazy--he doesn’t know whathe’s doing. He’s filling the ballast tanks unequally, and she’s got abad list to starboard. And he’s set the port and starboard planes atdifferent angles, which makes her go down this way. Oh, he’s surelycrazy! He’ll kill us all!”
White-faced they stared at one another. It seemed that the end had come.
Suddenly they all became aware of a peculiar odor--a choking,suffocating smell, while there seemed to be floating about them a vaporof greenish-yellow tint. They began to gasp for breath.
“What--what is it?” panted Bob. “I--I can’t breathe!”
“None of us will in a few minutes!” choked Jerry. “It’s chlorine gas!Some sea water must have gotten into the sulphuric acid of the storagebattery solution. That will make chlorine!”
“That--that’s right, lad!” gasped Ted. “That’s what happened. I’vesmelled it before when we had an accident on board Uncle Sam’ssubmarines. There’s a leak near the storage tanks!”
“What--what can be done?” queried Mr. Sheldon. “That gas will soon bedeadly.”
“It’s getting worse,” spoke Ned in a low voice. Bob, whose stoutnessmade him more susceptible to the effects of the chlorine gas, wasstaggering about weakly.
“Quick!” cried Jerry. “We must stop the motors, and then see if wecan’t force the ship to the surface. Fresh air is the only thing thatwill save us now. We must get rid of the chlorine gas!”
Staggering they made their way to the engine room. The motors werehumming away at top speed, being controlled and regulated by Dr.Klauss, shut up in the pilot house. The pointer of the depth gageshowed that the _Sonderbaar_ was going swiftly down. Already she wasnearing a thousand feet, and as this was close to the margin of safetythere was no telling when the terrific weight of the water would crushher like an egg shell.
True, she was strongly built, and might be able to stand the pressure,but it was a terrible risk that the madman was taking, and all realizedit save himself.
Weak from the effects of the gas, which constantly grew thicker,filling the interior of the submarine with its sickly, greenish-yellowtint, Jerry reached up, and pulled out the switch that stopped the mainmotor--the one connected with the propellers. This at once halted theprogress of the craft. But she was still far below the surface.
No sooner, however, had Jerry stopped the motor than Dr. Klauss, inthe pilot house, made an attempt to start it again, there being anauxiliary arrangement for doing this.
“The madman!” cried Ted, and reaching for a hammer with one blow hebroke the connection leading to the pilot house. That rendered itimpossible for Dr. Klauss to operate the motor from his position.
“Empty the ballast tanks! Get us to the surface!” cried Mr. Sheldon.“We are suffocating!”
It took but an instant to open the valve that forced compressed airinto the tanks containing the tons of water. The air forced out theliquid ballast, and, while the boys and the others watched eagerly, theneedle of the depth gage began moving backward.
“We’re going up!” cried Ned.
“Thank heaven for that!” murmured Mr. Sheldon, earnestly.
“Get up--as high as you can--near the ceiling!” cried Jerry. “Chlorineis nearly two and a half times as heavy as air. There may be some freshair near the ceiling.”
Choking and gasping, they all climbed up on various parts of themachinery. The air higher up was better, but even there it was hard tobreathe.
However, the submarine would be at the surface in a few moments, andnone too soon, either.
“I--I hope Grace is all right,” gasped her father.
“I’ll go tell her to get up as high as she can,” volunteered Bob.
“Professor Snodgrass will know enough for that,” declared Jerry. “Heknows the smell of chlorine and how to avoid it. Stay where you are.”
“Yes, do,” assented Mr. Sheldon. “Take no unnecessary risks, Bob.”
“Hark!” cried Jerry, motioning for silence. They heard someone rushingalong the steel-floored corridor leading to the motor room, and thenext instant Dr. Klauss staggered in on them.
“What--what does this mean?” he cried. “You are interfering with myboat. We are going--to the--bottom of--the sea!”
His voice trailed off into nothingness, and he fell unconscious on thefloor.
“The chlorine!” said Ted. “That did it! W
e’ll be out of it in anotherminute, though.”
Up shot the _Sonderbaar_. They could all tell when she reached thesurface and bounded out into the open sea. In an instant Jerry hadpulled the lever that removed the hatch cover. In rushed the fresh air,quickly reviving the sufferers. But Dr. Klauss still lay in a faint onthe floor of the motor room.
“We must get him on deck,” said Jerry. “We can’t let him die, even ifhe is a maniac and sought our lives.”
It was hard work, but they managed to get the unconscious form up thehatchway. Mr. Sheldon quickly ascertained that Grace and ProfessorSnodgrass, though suffering, were safe.
As Jerry and his chums lifted the limp form of the insane commander outinto the open, they gave a cry of surprise. For there, directly beforethem, and so close to the submarine that a few yards would have rammedher into it, lay a lonely island--an island in mid-ocean.