CHAPTER XX
THE DEVIL FISH
It was true. The long sinuous strands of ocean grass, known under thename of "serpent weed," had caught around the whirling propellers andthere had been wound and twisted very tightly. Just as sometimes thestern line gets so tightly twisted around a motor boat propeller as torequire hours of work with an axe to free it, the seaweed was twistedaround the blades of the M. N. 1.
Slowly the undersea craft came to a stop, and there she remained,floating freely enough, but a few feet above the bottom of the ocean.There was a look of alarm on the faces of Ned and Mr. Damon, but TomSwift smiled.
"This is annoying, and may cause us delay," he announced, "but there isno danger."
"How are we to get free from the weed?" asked Mr. Damon. "We can't moveif it's wound around our propellers, can we?"
"Not very well," Tom answered. "But all that will have to be done willbe for some of us to put on diving suits, go out and chop the strandsof weed away. We can do it more easily than could an ordinary vessel,for they would have to go into dry dock for the purpose. I think I'llgo out myself. I want to look around a little."
"I'll go with you," said Ned. "As long as we haven't seen any sharks Idon't mind."
"Nor gigantic starfish, either," added Tom with a smile, and Ned noddedin agreement.
"We might try reversing the propellers," suggested the man from theengine room, who had come in with the information about the serpentweed. "The chief didn't like to try that. We saw the weed from ourobservation windows and stopped as soon as we felt we had fouled it."
"That was right," commended Tom. "Well, try reversing. It can't do anyharm, and it may make it easier for us to free the propellers when wego out."
He went to the engine room himself to see that everything was properlyattended to. Slowly the motors were reversed, and only a slight currentwas given them, as, with the resistance of the tightly wound weed, toopowerful a force might burn out the insulation.
Slowly the starting lever was thrown over. There was a low humming andwhining as the current jumped from the batteries, and a slightvibration of the craft. Tom looked at the movable pointer which showedthe speed and direction of the propellers. The hand oscillatedslightly and then stopped.
"Shut off the current!" cried Tom. "It's of no use. The propellers areheld as tight as a drum! We've got to go out and cut loose the serpentweed!"
The experiment of reversing the propellers had failed. But still Tomdid not believe his craft was in danger. He gave orders for the engineroom force to stand by and then arranged for himself, Ned, and Koku togo outside in diving dress and cut the weed off the shafts. There weretwin propellers on the submarine, each revolving independently byseparate motors, and each capable of being sent in forward or reversedirection.
"Start the engines as soon as we give the signal," Tom told themachinist. "Two knocks on the hull with an axe will mean go ahead, andthree will mean reverse."
"I understand," said Weyth, the machinist. "But stand away from thepropellers after you give the signal. I'll give you three minutes tomove clear."
"That will be enough," Tom said. "But better make it half speed ineither case. My idea is that if we can partly cut the weed off,starting the propellers, either forward or in reverse, will finish thetrick."
"It may," agreed Weyth.
Armed with axes and sharp steel bars, Tom, Ned, and Koku were soonready to step outside the submarine.
They entered the diving chamber. In the usual manner water wasadmitted, and, when the pressure was equalized, the outer door wasopened and they walked out on the floor of the ocean, the submarinehaving been allowed to settle down again on the bottom of the Atlantic.
The powerful searchlight had been turned so that the beams werediffused toward the stern. In addition to this Tom and his twocompanions carried, attached to their suits, small, but brilliant,electric torches. Of course they had their air tanks with them, andalso the telephones, by means of which they could communicate with oneanother.
As they emerged into the warm waters surrounding the submarine theydisturbed thousands of small fish which were feeding all about. Likeocean swallows, the creatures scattered in all directions, some evenbrushing the divers as they slowly made their way toward the stern ofthe craft.
"Nice place here," said Ned to Tom, as they walked along, Koku comingjust behind them.
"Yes. If we could take this up above and exhibit it in some city parkit would make a hit all right," answered the young inventor.
They were walking on the pure, white, sandy floor of the ocean, someseven hundred feet below the surface, protected from the awful pressureof the water by means of the specially constructed suits which Tom hadinvented. About them, growing as if in a garden, were great masses ofcoral, some so thin and sinuous that it waved as do palms and ferns inthe open air. Other coral was in great rock masses.
Then, too, there was the unpleasant serpent weed. It did not grow allover, but in patches here and there, as rank grass springs up in ameadow.
And it had been the misfortune of the M. N. 1 that she poked her tailinto a mass of this long, tough grass, which was now wound about herpropellers.
In addition to the many wonderful vegetable forms that grew on theocean floor, some rivalling in beauty the orchids of the tropics, andalmost as delicate, there were the fishes, which darted to and fro, nowswiftly swimming beneath some coral arch, and again poising around somemass of waving sea fronds.
"Well, let's get busy," called Tom to Ned through the telephone. "Wewant to free the propellers and find the wreck of the Pandora. She maybe a hundred feet from us, or a mile away, and in that case it's goingto take longer to locate her."
Together they walked to the stern of the disabled craft. One look atthe propeller shafts, the examination being made by the diffused glowfrom the searchlight, as well as from the electric torches carried,showed that the diagnosis of the trouble was correct.
Wound around both propellers was a mass of the serpent weed, tightlybound because the machinery had whirled it around and around after thegrass had once been caught. It was almost as bad as though manila cablehad been thus accidentally fastened.
"Well, might as well begin to cut it loose," said Tom to hiscompanions. "Koku, you take the port propeller, and Ned and I will workon the other. You ought to be able to beat us at this game."
"Me do," said the giant, as he got his axe ready for work.
Blows struck in water lose much of their force. This can easily beproved by filling a bathtub full of water, rolling up the sleeves, andthen taking a hammer in the hand, immersing it fully, and trying tostrike some object held in the other hand. The water hampers the blows.
It was this way with Tom and his friends. Nearly half of Koku's greatstrength was wasted. But they knew they could take their time, thoughthey did not want to waste many hours.
The streamers of weed were like strands of tightly wound rope, andthis, under certain circumstances, acquires almost the density of wood.Tom and Ned, working together, had managed to chop a little off theirpropeller shaft, and Koku had done somewhat better with his task, whenNed became aware of a shadow passing above him.
Instinctively he looked up, and as he did so he could not repress astart of horror. Tom, too, as well as Koku, saw the menacing shadow.Ned grasped more tightly his sharp, steel bar and spoke through thetelephone to his companions.
"Devil fish!" he said. "The devil fish are after us."
Tom Swift and His Undersea Search; Or, the Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic Page 20