CHAPTER II
THE FIRST DIP UNDER THE SURFACE
By degrees this feeling of depression passed away. They were healthy boys, and as such could not long remain in the grip of the “blues.” It was all their own doings, too, and they were headed for an experience that certainly no other young fellows had ever been given before.
Soon they were taking an interest in all that went on around them. Oyster boats with the men at work dredging or tonging; duck hunters in blinds, or lying, it might be, in sink-boxes on the shallows with their decoys all around them—things like these were constantly cropping up to be observed through the marine glasses which they had been thoughtful enough to provide themselves with before starting on the voyage.
The afternoon sun was sinking toward the western horizon, and it was figured that by morning they would have arrived close to the ocean at Hampton Roads.
“How fast are we going, do you think, boys?” Ballyhoo was asking, while they continued to sit there and enjoy the bracing air of that late Fall afternoon.
“That’s hard to decide,” Oscar told him. “I understand that this boat can make about seventeen miles on the surface of the water, providing the sea is fairly calm. We may be doing nearly that right now.”
“And when she sinks down under the sea, what is she capable of doing then?” continued Ballyhoo, always eager for facts.
“Oh! I think it was about eight or nine knots an hour, which would be pretty good, all things considered,” Oscar replied.
“Our quarters are pretty cramped and we’ll be crowded a whole lot,” Jack said in a reflective way, “but we expected that before we came. Your uncle told us, Ballyhoo, we’d likely have to put up with many discomforts, and lack of space would be one of them.”
“What’s the odds so long as we’re happy,” Ballyhoo Jones laughingly declared. “We can be as snug as three bugs in a rug. There are some things a heap worse than being crowded. Sitting up in a bally old tree the livelong night, with a pair of hungry lions prowling around under you is one of them.”
“Yes, you know all about that sort of thing, Ballyhoo,” chuckled Oscar; “also how being almost devoured by cannibal ants feels. But we’re not going to run across anything like that on this trip, I reckon.”
“Oh! give things a chance, boys,” said Ballyhoo, confidently, “and there’ll be adventures a-plenty cropping up to make our hearts jump like mad. This time it may be storms, pirates, a damaged engine while we’re lying at the bottom of the sea so we can’t rise for air, and all that sort of thing.”
“What are you staring so hard at through the glasses, Jack?” asked Oscar, giving little heed to the pleasant prospect thus outlined so cheerfully by Ballyhoo, for he knew very well the other was only joking when he rattled these possible perils off so glibly.
“Why, I was watching that black steam yacht over there a mile or so away from us,” Jack remarked, lowering the marine glasses as he spoke. “I could see a fellow in some sort of uniform holding glasses on us right along. I guess he must be wondering whether we mightn’t prove to be a German submarine that had strayed across the broad Atlantic, like they threaten to do some of these fine days, to sink British munition steamships close to our shores, rather than wait for them to get over into the waters they’ve marked as the war zone.”
“I tell you what I think,” he observed a minute afterwards, “that same black steam yacht may be our rival, the Dauntless, and the man who is watching us all the while would then be that rollicking old world-wide adventurer, Captain Badger, who has sailed the Seven Seas from boyhood, been everything from blockade-runner to naval officer, and perhaps a little of a pirate on the sly besides.”
“Whew! do you really think so, Oscar?” cried Ballyhoo; “please let me have a peek at him then. I’ve heard so much about the old reprobate I’d love to say I’d actually set eyes on his phiz, even at a mile away.”
“We may see a little more of him than we want, before we’re done with this job,” Oscar told him, with the air of a prophet, but Ballyhoo only laughed, for he was not the one to cross any bridge before he came to it.
Just then Captain Barnaby Shooks, the man who had been placed in full charge of the treasure-hunting expedition by the incorporated company, came up the ladder from the conning-tower of the submarine boat. He was a grizzled old sea dog, who had seen much of life on many waters, and was well qualified to manage just such a strange mission as the one that had been placed in his hands.
He too carried a glass which he quickly focussed on the black steam yacht that was evidently capable of making much faster time than the low Argonaut, often almost awash.
“We’ve about made up our minds, Captain,” remarked Ballyhoo, who had struck up quite an intimate acquaintance with the commander, after his frank, confiding fashion, “that yonder vessel might be the Dauntless, our rival in the salvage trade. Were we right about that, sir?”
“It’s the Dauntless, sure enough,” the captain told them, “and they’re holding in as if they’d like to shadow us all the way down to where we’re going.”
“Oh! could they do that?” demanded Ballyhoo, in dismay.
“Well, if you’ve ever tried to clap your finger on a flea,” laughed the old mariner, “you’d know what it means to keep tabs on a boat that can duck under the surface of the sea, and stay there for ten hours, moving all the while.”
Captain Barnaby Shooks somehow did not seem to talk as most sea captains do in stories. He never once said “shiver my timbers” or used any similar phrase that was calculated to stamp him as a nautical man. Perhaps this arose from the fact that many years had elapsed since last he trod the deck of a genuine sailing vessel. With the gradual disappearance of the full-rigged ships, the brigs, and the barques, all that peculiar language is going out of date. Mechanics have taken the places of the old-time sailors accustomed to clambering up the shrouds, and standing on the yards of a ship reeling in an eighty mile gale.
When later on, after the sun had set, the boys prepared to go down below for supper, that black steam yacht was still on their lee quarter, and apparently bound to keep within sighting distance.
“Goodness gracious!” Ballyhoo was remarking the last thing before he crept down the steep little ladder leading into the conning tower, from which place they could reach the lower parts of the queer vessel, “I only hope they don’t mean to ram us in the night-time, and so get rid of a dangerous rival.”
“Not much danger of that,” Oscar assured him. “Captain Shooks will keep a faithful watch every minute of the time. And besides, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that those fellows don’t know all we do about the location of sunken treasure, also that their plan is to spy on us, and then steal our thunder.”
They did not go on deck again after partaking of the evening meal in the little saloon devoted to cabin purposes, in which, as Ballyhoo said, was not room to “whirl a cat around by the tail.” The night air was cold, and the blackness would prevent them from seeing anything worth while.
None of them secured much sleep during that first night. Everything was against it, for their quarters were terribly cramped, and the air anything but fresh, even though the boat continued to remain upon the surface of the water all through the night.
“Whee! just imagine what it’s going to be when we’re down under the surface of the sea,” said Ballyhoo, at one time, as they prepared to lie down in their bunks, placed above each other in a tier.
“Oh! you can get used to most anything in time,” Jack assured him, “if only you make up your mind that way. Always think of something that’s a whole lot worse, and it’s wonderful how satisfied you soon feel.”
The boat rolled somewhat later on in the night, and Oscar, being awake, made up his mind that no doubt they were coming closer to the wide mouth of the great bay, so that they now encountered the long inward sweep of the ocean’s heaving billows.
Sure enough, when, after awakening to find that it was morning, for light came in through the heavy glass observation bull’s-eyes arranged in numerous places, the boys upon reaching the deck again discovered that they could look far out to sea, as the submarine had already passed Fortress Monroe and was now awaiting the coming of a cutter from a black destroyer carrying the U. S. flag, that had shot out to overtake them.
An officer came aboard, and was shown down into the captain’s diminutive cabin, where no doubt he looked over the ship’s papers, asked many questions concerning the proposed voyage, which must have interested him considerably, and finally said “good-bye and good luck” to the smiling skipper.
Then the engines once more began to throb, and the boat to quiver with the energy they displayed. The boys, looking back toward the beautiful shores they were leaving, again had their thoughts turn toward the folks at home. But the summons to breakfast dissipated all such sad reflections; and when an hour later they again came on deck the shore was dim and hazy in the distance.
Evidently they were now well started on their interesting voyage. What the outcome was going to be could only be guessed at; but hope ran high in all their hearts.
“There’s our friend, the enemy, just as we expected would be the case!” cried Ballyhoo Jones as he pointed to a dim spot several miles off, and which seemed to be some sort of black boat, also bound south.
“I’m looking at something else, though,” remarked Oscar. “That bank of clouds lying low along the horizon in the south seems to have a storm hidden in it. And we are heading straight that way in the bargain.”
“Oh! perhaps it’s only a little squall, such as they often meet in these waters,” Jack was saying. “The West Indian hurricane season is pretty well over by now, you know, or else the expedition wouldn’t have started when it did.”
“But even a little storm would send the waves clean over this low boat,” suggested Ballyhoo. “I’m not a born sailor, and I don’t want to seem bothered when there’s no danger, but you can see how we wallow at times right now, when we run smack up against one of those long swells.”
“You mustn’t forget,” Oscar told him, “that we’ve got one way of snapping our fingers at the wind and the waves when the time comes.”
“Course you mean by submerging, Oscar,” continued the other, grinning amiably. “I had that in mind all the while, but was only fishing to find out what you other fellows thought about it. The wind seems to be increasing a whole lot, and, yes sir, those clouds are rising right now. Whee! looks like we’ll experience our first dip below the waves before another hour goes by.”
As the clouds rose higher the sea began to look black. Although they knew what caused this the boys could not keep from feeling a little anxious, especially when the waves commenced to splash them with scud, as they struck the bow of the dipping submarine and broke.
They were really glad, therefore, when the captain ordered them to go below, as it was necessary to make preparations against foul weather. For some time afterwards the little boat labored heavily, until Ballyhoo began to feel the first signs of uneasiness in the pit of his stomach.
All of them felt relieved when they discovered that they were commencing to sink. The water tanks were being filled rapidly, and before long they realized that in truth they had vanished from the surface of the sea.
How calm it seemed down there, with the engines once more taking up their regular pulsations. The boys glued their eyes to the thick plate-glass observation bull’s-eyes, but all they could see when the searchlight was turned on was rushing green water all around them.
Doubtless the storm raged above as the squall spread over the sea, but safe in the stanch little submarine, far beneath the troubled surface, they knew nothing of it. By degrees the three chums became more used to their strange surroundings. The experience of novelty began to wear away. When one becomes accustomed to anything it no longer has the power to excite wonder, and give the same kind of thrill.
Later on they could sleep calmly when lying at the bottom of the sea, even though the manufactured air did seem queer, and breathing not as comfortable as under ordinary conditions, with the pure article to inhale.
Hours passed during which they continued to forge ahead. Oscar figured that they were making something like eight knots an hour while pushing through the depths.
Then came the time when they arose to take an observation through the periscope. The boys, of course, had to be allowed a chance to see, of which they hastened to avail themselves eagerly.
Never would they forget that first experience at looking through the periscope of a submarine far out at sea. The still heaving waters, running far away to the horizon, looked startling to their unaccustomed eyes. It seemed as though they might be lying on the edge of the world itself, and looking over a vast undulating plain.
When the captain judged that it would be safe to come up, as the storm had passed, and the sea was no longer rough, he gave the order.
Again the boys sought their old stand up on the small deck where the ventilation shafts protruded, and the periscope reared its lofty head.
Everywhere they looked the same tumbling waters met their gaze. Not a vessel was in sight, even through the glasses.
“We’ve given the Dauntless the slip, all right!” Ballyhoo hastened to boast after he had made sure of this fact.
“But the chances are we’ll see considerably more of that same boat before we’re through with this voyage,” said Jack; and subsequent happenings proved him a true prophet, as will be made manifest later on in this story.