Chapter VIII: Chasing a Torpedo

Dick and Carl, together with the rest of the crew of the _Grampus_, did a lot of guessing after Matt and Glennie left them with the captain of the port.

The commotion kicked up by the torpedo put a sudden and effectual stop to their speculations. Carl, Dick, and Speake were on deck when the Whitehead began its peculiar performance, and the jerks administered to the _Grampus_ by the tow line quickly brought Gaines and Clackett up through the tower hatch.

"Ach, du lieber!" cried Carl. "See vonce vat has habbened mit der dorpeto. A vale has got dangled oop mit der tow line; oder oof id don'd vas a vale id vas a shark, und a pig feller, I bed you. Vat a funny pitzness! 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 got loose inside the torpedo--compressed air, or something--and that that is 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 never let the _Grampus_ get any closer to that infernal machine than she is now."

"Matt vants dot dorpeto or he vouldn't haf taken der drouple to tow her in."

"Matt can have it, matey, but I don't intend to board a Whitehead when it's dancing a hornpipe. If the dynamite should happen to let go----"

Dick was interrupted by a chorus of surprised yells from the rest of his 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 off mit it. Bedder dot vale look a leedle oudt und not knock his tail too hardt against der dorpeto. Oof he do dot, den, py shinks, he make some mincemeat out oof himseluf."

"Great guns!" exclaimed Gaines. "What do you suppose did that, Dick?"

"More mysterious things have happened to us since we left Magellan Strait," ruminated Dick, "than ever came our way before. Suppose we haul 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 the end was sliced off clean.

"A knife did that!" declared Clackett.

"Der vale dit id mit his teet'," asserted Carl, who always hung to one of 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 Motor Matt's torpedo. Matt must have wanted that Whitehead or he wouldn't have gone to the trouble to tow it in. Are we going to let it get away from 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 while Matt's ashore," said Gaines.

"I guess Matt wouldn't mind if we took a dive along the bottom of the bay to overhaul that runaway torpedo," remarked Dick.

"Sure, nod!" chimed in Carl. "Matt vill be as madt as some vet hens ven ve tell him der dorpeto skyhooted avay mit itseluf und ve ditn't do nodding to shdop id."

"We'll chance it, anyway, mates," said Dick. "I'm always in command whenever 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 the last man down secure the hatch."

Speake was the last one to drop down the hatch. The ballast tanks were already filling as he stepped off the iron ladder upon the floor of the periscope room.

Dick was at the wheel.

"Turn on the electric projector, Speake," said Dick. "I'm going up into the tower and do the steering from there."

Dick got just two rounds up the ladder when a muffled roar enveloped the _Grampus_, and she was heaved violently over until the tower was almost on a level with her keel.

Carl, who had been inspecting the periscope, was thrown violently against the rounded wall over the locker. Speake, just reaching up to turn the electric switch that sent a current through the wires of the projector, went head over heels against one of the bulkheads. As for Dick, he pulled off a remarkable stunt at ground and lofty tumbling, winding up with his head under the periscope table and his heels in the air.

Yells came in muffled volume from below, proving that Gaines and Clackett were likewise having their troubles.

The _Grampus_ righted herself almost as quickly as she had flopped over. This, taking place before those aboard had had a chance to adjust themselves, still further complicated matters.

When every one was finally right side up, Dick jumped to the speaking tubes.

"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 through the 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 use hunting for it now."

"I don't believe it was that torpedo that exploded," said Speake. "What could 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 trim and steady as ever. Now that we're down near the bottom we'll cruise a little and see what we can discover. We've got an hour or two, I guess, before Matt and Glennie get back to the landing and want to come aboard. Slow speed, Gaines," he called.

Hurrying up into the conning tower, Dick pressed his eyes against the forward lunettes. The trail of light, reaching out through the lunette, illuminated the murky waters for several yards beyond the point of the submarine's bow.

There was a commotion in the depths, and fishes were darting in all directions.

Steering from the ladder, Dick headed the _Grampus_ toward the north. They had not gone far before Dick saw something which made him rub his eyes.

"Am I doing a calk," he muttered, "or are these lamps of mine making a monkey's fist of their work? Strike me lucky! Carl! Look into the periscope!"

A vague shape was passing through the gleam of the search light. It looked like a huge cigar, its pointed end tilted slightly upward. At the rear of the object there was a flurry of water.

"Id's a vale!" boomed Carl, whose mind seemed to be running on whales that day.

"It's another submarine," gasped Speake, "that's what it is. I wonder if 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 the direction the _Grampus_ was following. Because of this the second craft was some time in passing through the glow of the search light.

As Dick called out, those at the periscope table saw the Whitehead torpedo glide into the gleam from the electric projector. A rope held the forward end of the torpedo to the stern of the other submarine, the buoyancy of the steel cylinder causing its rear part to stand almost straight up in the water.

It was an odd procession the boat and the torpedo made as they defiled through the pencil of light.

"Dot's der feller vat shtole Matt's dorpeto!" cried Carl. "Run against der rope, Tick, und preak der dorpeto loose."

"Not much, I won't, matey," breathed Dick. "We're not going to take any chances 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 of Speake's had aroused. "It was a torpedo, though, and that other craft must have launched it at us."

"Ach, himmelblitzen!" gasped Carl. "For vy should dot odder poat shoot some dorpetos ad us, hey?"

"Give it up, Carl, unless there are some of those Sons of the Rising Sun aboard."

Dick slid down the ladder in a hurry.

"Empty the tanks, Clackett!" he sang out. "We've got to hustle out of this," he added to Carl and Speake, "before they shoot another Whitehead at us. Keelhaul me, but this will be news for Matt. We've got to tell him about it as soon as ever we can get the _Grampus_ back to her old berth."

Two minutes later the submarine lifted her turtle-like back out of the waves. Dick headed her south, and Carl and Speake pushed open the hatch and went out on the wet plates. Dick ascended the ladder to steer from the hatch. Hardly had he got head and shoulders into the outside air when 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 the landing. Glennie was yelling and waving his cap.

"Vat's der madder mit him, I vonder?" queried Carl. "He vouldn't be doing dot oof he knowed aboudt dot odder poat und der dorpeto."