CHAPTER XXII.
A NARROW ESCAPE.
For one sickening instant the diving craft shuddered and shivered like a stricken live thing. All the while the dull whirr of the engines, the thrill of the cylinder of metal in which six human lives were at stake, continued.
To the huddled mass piled together in inextricable confusion at one end of the main cabin, the brief space of time that ensued between the crash of the battleship’s impact and the slow, shuddering recovery of the submarine, appeared to be hours. In reality it was but minutes.
Any one of them, except perhaps Jupe, would have willingly faced death on land had it been inevitable. But penned in a metal cylinder under the depths of the ocean, things were very different.
However, forward in the steering compartment was the guiding spirit of the occasion. Not for an instant did Daniel Dancer, dreamer and inventor, swerve from his post or his duty. With quick, sure fingers he manipulated the emergency machinery following the crash. For aught he knew, at any instant through a wound in the side of the almost human craft he had created the water might come pouring in.
But although his face was deathly pale he controlled the machinery with a heavy hand. When the crash came his heart had bounded to his mouth. Like Mr. Chadwick he had murmured to himself:
“It is the end!”
With indomitable pluck he stuck to his post, but his pale lips moved as if in prayer.
One! two! three minutes passed, and still came no sign that the blow dealt the White Shark had been a mortal one. Her engines buzzed steadily on. Glancing almost fearfully at the array of indicators in front of him, the inventor manipulated the devices which he knew would show the slightest injury to the craft they controlled.
But one after another they responded. The White Shark was in perfect control.
“Can it be possible, after that fearful blow?” breathed Daniel Dancer, half afraid to believe the good fortune which investigation showed him must be his.
He set the craft on an even keel and hailed the others.
Mr. Chadwick’s voice came back:
“How is it, Dancer? Tell us the worst.”
“The best, you mean,” cried the joyous inventor. “By a stroke of miraculous fortune, that battleship only struck us a glancing blow, although if it had been a fraction of an inch nearer——”
His voice trailed off hesitatingly. He could not trust himself to speak. Men who have looked into their tombs and then beheld themselves snatched back to earth again, are not given to much speech.
The others came crowding into the steering chamber. Wonder was on every face and a sort of reverent look, too. Each felt that only divine Providence could have saved them in that fearful moment.
“The White Shark is not damaged at all?” demanded Mr. Chadwick incredulously.
“Not a bit. Hark at her engines. I expect our back is dented, but outside of that I anticipate finding no considerable damage.”
“Den we ain’t done drownded at de bottom ob de sea?”
The voice came in a plaintive wail from the door of the steering chamber. In it was framed the white-aproned form of Jupe. His face was gray and his eyes rolled like saucers.
“Not yet, Jupe,” laughed Mr. Chadwick happily, such was his relief over their salvation from a fearful death, “we’re still in the ring.”
“Das right, boss;” grinned Jupe, “and de dinner am still on de wing. I was jes’ goin’ ter call you alls when gollyumptions, dar come dat cantankerous smash!
“Fo’ de lub ob goodness, boss,” he went on, “what was dat hit us? Granddaddy whale or suthin’?”
“Neither, Jupe; but a battleship.”
Jupe threw up his hands.
“A battleship! Good lan’ ob Goshen, ah done heah ob a locusmocus buttin’ ah niggah’s haid, but I nebber heard tell ob a battleship hitting a peanut like dis yar.”
“Peanut!” cried Jack with mock indignation.
“Ah jes’ means a menagerie peanut, Marse Jack.”
“That’s where you find them, as a rule—in a menagerie.”
“Oh, I don’ mean dat peanut what you eat. Ah mean, compahed wid dat battling ship dis yar White Shark ain’ as big as a peanut to a whale, no sah. But ah am certingly grossly ‘xaggerated ter fin’ dat we am still in de water and not undah it,” concluded Jupe, shuffling off to repair the damage in his kitchen.
Luckily, most of the “china” was agate ware, and the majority of the movable articles, including the kitchen utensils, were designed so to remain stationary, so the damage was not as great as might have been anticipated; but it was bad enough.
“And now for the surface,” declared Mr. Dancer; “and, in the meantime, Chadwick, you had better look at that half-drowned man. You’ll find the medicine chest in my cabin.”