Chapter VI: Another Attack

This weird vanishing on the part of the object in dispute between Motor Matt and Captain Pons left those on steps of the Casa gasping. The Frenchman dropped limply down and hugged his folded arms to his breast; the Chilian looked wild, and a superstitious fear arose in the eyes of the two negroes. Glennie grabbed up the glasses the captain had been using a few minutes before, clapped them to his eyes, and proceeded to examine the surface of the bay.

The strange movements of the torpedo had had something of an effect upon the _Grampus_, for she had swung about on her cable and dipped slightly sternward. She was lying quietly enough now, however, and Carl, Dick, Speake, Gaines, and Clackett were swarming over her deck and evidently wondering what had become of the Whitehead.

Matt, with his naked eyes, could see his friends moving about, although it was impossible for him to discover exactly what they were doing.

"They're pulling in the rope that was made fast to the torpedo," said Glennie. "They've got the end of it in their hands."

"Great spark plugs!" murmured Matt dazedly. "That was a queer performance, I must say. Can you see anything of the Whitehead, Glennie?"

"Not a thing. There must have been some compressed air still left in the cylinder, and in some way it got to the screws."

Matt shook his head.

"That's not it, Glennie. Even if the Whitehead's screws had begun to work they couldn't have caused the big tube to dance around in that unheard-of fashion. I----"

Matt, with a sudden alarming thought running through his mind, started down the steps at a run. The Frenchman shouted something. Taking his cue from Captain Pons, the Chilian also shouted. Probably it was a command for Matt to halt, but the young motorist did not construe it in that way. Pons, himself, had said that there was no cause for the arrest of Matt and Glennie, and Motor Matt believed that he was perfectly free to go wherever he wished. Just then he was tremendously eager to get aboard the _Grampus_.

One of the old-fashioned pistols went off with a _bang_ like a small cannon. A lead slug screeched through the air well over Matt's head.

"Come back, Matt!" yelled Glennie. "If you don't, the next bullet may come closer to you."

Matt faced about indignantly.

"What are they shooting at me for?" he demanded.

"They don't want you to get away, just yet."

"But I've got to get away! We must get aboard the _Grampus_ as quick as the nation will let us. Can't you understand this business, Glennie? That French submarine is in the bottom of the bay! The Japs are recovering that torpedo! You know why they want it, as well as I do."

"Jupiter!" exclaimed Glennie, "I hadn't thought of that. But you'd better come back here, Matt, while we explain the situation to Captain Pons. It's better to have him and the captain of the port for friends rather than enemies."

"Every minute's delay makes the position of the _Grampus_ just that much more dangerous. Carl, Dick, and the rest don't know a thing about this other submarine, and if the Japs made an attack on our boat, while she's lying at anchor----"

"Don't fret about that, Matt," cut in Glennie. "The Japs will have their hands full saving their torpedo. They're thinking more about that Whitehead just at present than of anything else. But, anyhow, we can't try to dodge the bullets these negroes will send after us if we make a run of it."

Matt, fretting over the delay, slowly returned to the steps. The negro was reloading his pistol, the other was making ready to use his weapon in case Matt refused to obey orders, and both the captain of the port and Captain Pons were looking extremely fierce and determined.

Both captains were talking to Glennie. The ensign answered them sharply, and the captains gave responses equally sharp.

"What a pair of dunderheads!" growled Glennie to Matt.

"How's that?" queried Matt.

"Captain Pons has developed a very bright idea," was the ensign's sarcastic response. "He says we caused the torpedo to act in that unaccountable manner, and that we did it in order to steal it from him."

Matt caught his breath.

"Is Captain Pons in his sober senses?" he demanded.

"All the senses Heaven endowed him with are on duty."

"How does he think we could cause the torpedo to act in that manner?"

"He lays it to our friends on the _Grampus_, but is gloriously indefinite concerning the way they worked the trick."

Matt walked up the steps and faced Captain Pons. "We had nothing to do with the disappearance of the torpedo!" he cried. "Why, the very idea is preposterous! How could any of our men cause the Whitehead to disappear in that fashion?"

"You want ze torpedo," insisted Captain Pons doggedly. "You make ze dispute wiz me. Zen, w'en I say _non_, ze torpedo belong wiz me, _pouf!_ away he go lak a streak. You haf stole heem, and you will answer to ze French government for zat, by gar!"

"That is foolish talk, Captain Pons, for a man of your age and experience."

"Hein! I am not so foolish as w'at you zink."

"It was the other boat that stole the torpedo--the submarine the Japs stole from you."

"Zat could not be ze _Pom_. Ze Jap zey would not dar-r-r-e bring ze _Pom_ back in ze bay."

"You don't know those Japs as well as we do, captain. They are enemies of ours, and have followed us clear from Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. They want to destroy the _Grampus_, to keep her out of the hands of the United States Navy. If I don't go down there, and warn my friends and do something to protect our submarine, this _Pom_ of yours may make an attack."

"Zis is a friendly port," replied Captain Pons, with a wave of the hand. "Ze Japs will not dar-r-r-e make attack in ze friendly port."

Matt was disgusted. He felt that he had never met a man so dense as this Captain Pons.

"The Japs stole your submarine in a friendly port," he remarked dryly. "I guess that proves that they're not above committing lawless acts in a Chilian harbor. You have no right to detain Ensign Glennie and myself. We are under the protection of the Stars and Stripes. If you are determined to keep us with you on this ridiculous charge of stealing the torpedo, then will you not accompany us to the _Grampus_ while we take measures for the boat's protection? While there, perhaps we may be able to convince you how foolish this charge of yours is."

"Zat is reasonable talk," admitted Captain Pons gravely. "I vill spik wiz my good friend, Captain Arco."

Matt and Glennie drew apart while the two captains held a whispered conversation, although a very animated one.

"A couple of jumping jacks!" muttered Glennie; "and blockheads, to boot. I wonder what those French shipbuilders were thinking of to send a man like Captain Pons with their submarine."

"Well, he may know all about the submarine, and be perfectly trustworthy," answered Matt.

"I wouldn't trust him to drive a pair of mules on a canal."

The ensign was completely disgusted.

"Ah!" he said, a moment later. "The two great minds have at last come to a decision in this momentous matter."

Captains Pons and Arco approached the two lads importantly.

"Ze good captain has agreed to go back wiz you and me to ze submarine," announced Captain Pons. "If, w'en we get zere, you will hand ovair ze torpedo, zen we not make ze trouble for you any more. _Allons!_ let us be gone."

The negroes, following an order from the captain of the port, dropped in on either side of Matt and Glennie, their antiquated pistols prominently displayed. Then, with the two captains leading the way, the American lads left the Casa de la Administracion.

"How those Japs managed to get hold of that torpedo without showing themselves," remarked Glennie, on the way to the landing, "is a conundrum."

"They must have come up under the torpedo," answered Matt, "just close enough to the surface to grapple a coil of the rope that was around the steel shell."

"Even on that theory the move is hard to understand. While the _Pom_ was under water it would not be possible for any one aboard of her to work at the ropes around the torpedo."

"Perhaps the grappling was done by manoeuvring the boat."

"That might be----"

Glennie was interrupted. By that time the party had nearly reached the landing. Before any of them stepped foot on the wharf, however, there came a loud detonation, and a geyser-like column of water arose high in the air. So lofty was the column that some of the spray from it was hurled across the intervening stretch of the bay and into the faces of Matt, Glennie, and the rest.

When the column had sunk downward, those on the shore could see that the _Grampus_ had disappeared!