CHAPTER VIII.
CHASING A TORPEDO.
Dick and Carl, together with the rest of the crew of the _Grampus_, dida lot of guessing after Matt and Glennie left them with the captain ofthe port.
The commotion kicked up by the torpedo put a sudden and effectual stopto their speculations. Carl, Dick, and Speake were on deck when theWhitehead began its peculiar performance, and the jerks administered tothe _Grampus_ by the tow line quickly brought Gaines and Clackett upthrough the tower hatch.
"Ach, du lieber!" cried Carl. "See vonce vat has habbened mit derdorpeto. A vale has got dangled oop mit der tow line; oder oof id don'dvas a vale id vas a shark, und a pig feller, I bed you. Vat a funnypitzness! From der actions, id looks like der dorpeto vas alife."
"Whale!" scoffed Dick. "Don't you believe that a whale, or shark,either, has got anything to do with that."
"Vat it iss, den?"
"I give it up. What do you think, Speake?"
"Ask me something easy," answered Speake. "Mebby something has gotloose inside the torpedo--compressed air, or something--and that thatis what's putting the big tube through its jig."
"Led's pull in der line," suggested Carl, "und make der dorpeto pehave."
"Not on your life!" cried Dick. "It's full of dynamite, and I'll neverlet the _Grampus_ get any closer to that infernal machine than she isnow."
"Matt vants dot dorpeto or he vouldn't haf taken der drouple to tow herin."
"Matt can have it, matey, but I don't intend to board a Whitehead whenit's dancing a hornpipe. If the dynamite should happen to let go----"
Dick was interrupted by a chorus of surprised yells from the rest ofhis companions.
The torpedo, kicking one end high in the air, had taken a "header"toward the bottom of the bay.
"Dot means goot-by," murmured the amazed Carl. "Der vale's run offmit it. Bedder dot vale look a leedle oudt und not knock his tail toohardt against der dorpeto. Oof he do dot, den, py shinks, he make somemincemeat out oof himseluf."
"Great guns!" exclaimed Gaines. "What do you suppose did that, Dick?"
"More mysterious things have happened to us since we left MagellanStrait," ruminated Dick, "than ever came our way before. Suppose wehaul in on the tow line and have a look at the end of it."
The line was pulled aboard. There were some forty feet of it, and theend was sliced off clean.
"A knife did that!" declared Clackett.
"Der vale dit id mit his teet'," asserted Carl, who always hung to oneof his own theories like a dog to a bone.
"Bosh, Clackett!" scoffed Gaines. "How could a knife have done that?Who was down there to cut the rope?"
"It don't make any difference what separated the rope," put in Speake,"the thing was done, and something or other is running away with MotorMatt's torpedo. Matt must have wanted that Whitehead or he wouldn'thave gone to the trouble to tow it in. Are we going to let it get awayfrom us?"
"How can we help it?" inquired Clackett.
"We can follow it," asserted Speake.
"We haven't any business taking the _Grampus_ from her anchorage whileMatt's ashore," said Gaines.
"I guess Matt wouldn't mind if we took a dive along the bottom of thebay to overhaul that runaway torpedo," remarked Dick.
"Sure, nod!" chimed in Carl. "Matt vill be as madt as some vet hens venve tell him der dorpeto skyhooted avay mit itseluf und ve ditn't donodding to shdop id."
"We'll chance it, anyway, mates," said Dick. "I'm always in commandwhenever our old raggie is off the boat. Get down to the motor, Gaines.Clackett, get after the tanks. Come below, the rest of you, and let thelast man down secure the hatch."
Speake was the last one to drop down the hatch. The ballast tanks werealready filling as he stepped off the iron ladder upon the floor of theperiscope room.
Dick was at the wheel.
"Turn on the electric projector, Speake," said Dick. "I'm going up intothe tower and do the steering from there."
Dick got just two rounds up the ladder when a muffled roar envelopedthe _Grampus_, and she was heaved violently over until the tower wasalmost on a level with her keel.
Carl, who had been inspecting the periscope, was thrown violentlyagainst the rounded wall over the locker. Speake, just reaching up toturn the electric switch that sent a current through the wires of theprojector, went head over heels against one of the bulkheads. As forDick, he pulled off a remarkable stunt at ground and lofty tumbling,winding up with his head under the periscope table and his heels in theair.
Yells came in muffled volume from below, proving that Gaines andClackett were likewise having their troubles.
The _Grampus_ righted herself almost as quickly as she had floppedover. This, taking place before those aboard had had a chance to adjustthemselves, still further complicated matters.
When every one was finally right side up, Dick jumped to the speakingtubes.
"How are you down there, Gaines?" he called.
"I turned a handspring over the motor," came back the voice of Gaines,"but I guess I didn't damage anything."
"I stood on my head in one of the accumulators," added Clackett throughthe tank-room tube. "We turned turtle there for about half a minute.What caused it, Dick? I heard an explosion, too."
"That bally old torpedo must have gone off," answered Dick. "No usehunting for it now."
"I don't believe it was that torpedo that exploded," said Speake. "Whatcould have set it off?"
"Der vale shlowed oop a leedle," explained Carl, "und id run indo him.I bed you somet'ing for nodding dere iss vale all ofer der pay."
"We're in luck, anyhow," exulted Dick. "This old flugee is as trimand steady as ever. Now that we're down near the bottom we'll cruisea little and see what we can discover. We've got an hour or two, Iguess, before Matt and Glennie get back to the landing and want to comeaboard. Slow speed, Gaines," he called.
Hurrying up into the conning tower, Dick pressed his eyes against theforward lunettes. The trail of light, reaching out through the lunette,illuminated the murky waters for several yards beyond the point of thesubmarine's bow.
There was a commotion in the depths, and fishes were darting in alldirections.
Steering from the ladder, Dick headed the _Grampus_ toward the north.They had not gone far before Dick saw something which made him rub hiseyes.
"Am I doing a calk," he muttered, "or are these lamps of mine makinga monkey's fist of their work? Strike me lucky! Carl! Look into theperiscope!"
A vague shape was passing through the gleam of the search light. Itlooked like a huge cigar, its pointed end tilted slightly upward. Atthe rear of the object there was a flurry of water.
"Id's a vale!" boomed Carl, whose mind seemed to be running on whalesthat day.
"It's another submarine," gasped Speake, "that's what it is. I wonderif Matt didn't know there was another submarine in these waters?"
"Watch!" cried Dick excitedly. "What's that behind the thing?"
The other boat was moving in a course that angled slightly with thedirection the _Grampus_ was following. Because of this the second craftwas some time in passing through the glow of the search light.
As Dick called out, those at the periscope table saw the Whiteheadtorpedo glide into the gleam from the electric projector. A rope heldthe forward end of the torpedo to the stern of the other submarine, thebuoyancy of the steel cylinder causing its rear part to stand almoststraight up in the water.
It was an odd procession the boat and the torpedo made as they defiledthrough the pencil of light.
"Dot's der feller vat shtole Matt's dorpeto!" cried Carl. "Run againstder rope, Tick, und preak der dorpeto loose."
"Not much, I won't, matey," breathed Dick. "We're not going to take anychances with _that_ Whitehead."
"It certainly wasn't that torpedo that went off, a little while ago,Dick," observed Speake.
"Right-o," Dick answered, startled by the thought this remark ofSpeake's had aroused. "It was a torpedo, though, and that othe
r craftmust have launched it at us."
"Ach, himmelblitzen!" gasped Carl. "For vy should dot odder poat shootsome dorpetos ad us, hey?"
"Give it up, Carl, unless there are some of those Sons of the RisingSun aboard."
Dick slid down the ladder in a hurry.
"Empty the tanks, Clackett!" he sang out. "We've got to hustle outof this," he added to Carl and Speake, "before they shoot anotherWhitehead at us. Keelhaul me, but this will be news for Matt. We've gotto tell him about it as soon as ever we can get the _Grampus_ back toher old berth."
Two minutes later the submarine lifted her turtle-like back out of thewaves. Dick headed her south, and Carl and Speake pushed open the hatchand went out on the wet plates. Dick ascended the ladder to steer fromthe hatch. Hardly had he got head and shoulders into the outside airwhen a shout from Carl and Speake drew his eyes toward the wharf.
Matt and Glennie, and a few more the boys did not know, were on thelanding. Glennie was yelling and waving his cap.
"Vat's der madder mit him, I vonder?" queried Carl. "He vouldn't bedoing dot oof he knowed aboudt dot odder poat und der dorpeto."
Motor Matt Makes Good; or, Another Victory For the Motor Boys Page 8