“Let me out of here!” ordered Bob.
“Can’t do it just yet, Bob,” answered Gaines apologetically.
“What does this mean?”
“It means that we’re going to help out General Mendez with that warning of the don’s. You wouldn’t take the responsibility, but Speake and Clackett and me are willin’ to bear it.”
“Do you mean to say,” cried Bob hotly, “that you have deliberately sailed away from Belize without permission from Captain Nemo, junior, or from me?”
“That’s the size of it,” was the respectful but decisive answer. “We know that the cap’n would tell us to go ahead and help the don. We ain’t finding any fault with you for not doing it on your own hook, ’cause you’re a stickler for what you think’s your duty. We feel we’re doin’ right, though, and we want you to feel the same way.”
“This is mutiny!” cried Bob.
“That’s a pretty hard name for it, Bob. I’ve been in ships, man and boy, for thirty years, and this is the first time any one ever accused me of mutiny. We just think we know what ought to be done and are goin’ ahead and doin’ it. You’ll be able to tell the cap’n, when you next see him, that you couldn’t help yourself. Speake, Clackett, and me are banking on it that the cap’n’ll say we did just right.”
This line of reasoning surprised Bob. For a moment he was silent, turning it over in his mind.
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“I can hardly believe this of you, Gaines,” said the young motorist finally. “How are you running the ship?”
“We’re short-handed, and that’s a fact; still, we’re making shift to get along. We’re running on the surface, so Clackett don’t have anything to do in the tank room, and he’s running the engine.”
“Who’s doing the steering?”
“The don’s doing that. He knows the coast, he says, and he seems to be right handy with the wheel. But I’m watchin’ to see that he don’t make any flukes.”
“You’ll have us on the rocks first thing you know!” cried Bob. “Put her about and go-back to Belize.”
“You might just as well understand, Bob,” answered Gaines firmly, “that we’ve started on this business and we’re going to see it through. We want your good will—and we think you’ll give it to us before we’re done with this cruise. It’s a short cruise, anyhow, and we ought to be back at Belize by to-morrow night.”
“If anything happens to the Grampus,” said Bob, “you’ll be held responsible.”
“We’re willin’. We went into this with our eyes wide open. First thing we did was to shut both doors of that room and lock ’em; then we heaved up the anchors as quiet as we could, and you and Dick were so sound asleep you didn’t hear a thing. It’s two in the morning now, and we’re well down the coast—so far down that we might as well see this thing through as to put back. Don’t you think so?”
“It doesn’t appear to make much difference what I think,” said Bob grimly.
“Well, not a terrible sight,” went on Gaines, “only, as I said, we’d rather have your good will than your bad.”
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“How did you work this? How did the don get back?”
“He stood off and on in the sailboat. As soon as you were asleep, Clackett and I dickered with him, and he came aboard.”
“I haven’t much of an opinion of Don Ramon Ortega!” exclaimed Bob. “Any man who will hire a crew to disobey orders has a crooked strain in him somewhere.”
“We’re doin’ this for humanity,” asserted Gaines, in a highly virtuous tone.
“Bosh,” scoffed Bob. “You’re doing it for five thousand two hundred and fifty dollars—which you won’t get.”
“Won’t get?” demanded Gaines, in ludicrous alarm.
“That’s my view of it, Gaines. There’s something wrong with Don Ramon. After what he’s done, I’m positive that he told us a pretty tall yarn. Let me out of here!”
“Sorry, but it ain’t to be thought of—just yet. When you and Dick will promise to go with us, and not make any trouble, we’ll let you out.”
“Looks as though we’d have to go with you whether we wanted to or not, you old pirate!” cried Dick.
“Aren’t you with us, Dick?” called Gaines, in a pleading voice. “We hate to have the two of you against us.”
“With you,” whooped Dick, “and against Bob! Well, I should say not! You’re a lot of blooming beach combers to act in this way.”
“But you thought the don’s proposition was all right.”
“Never mind what I thought of the don or his proposition—it’s what Bob thought about it that concerns me. Oh, you’re a nice lot, you are! If you know when you’re well off, you’ll haul that don out of135 the conning tower and put him in double irons; then you’ll let Bob and me out of here and obey orders. It’s not too late yet to undo the trouble you’ve caused. Just let that bounce around in your head for a while and see what you make of it.”
“We’re in this thing now, and we’re going to hang to it,” was the dogged response.
Gaines turned away and the two chums could hear him moving off. Bob went over to his cot and sat down.
“Great guns!” he exclaimed. “Who’d ever have thought Speake, Gaines, and Clackett would take the bit in their teeth like this?”
“They mean well, perhaps,” said Dick, with a grim laugh. “They are trying to take the responsibility off your shoulders, Bob. They could see that you were hungry to go with the don, but that you didn’t think you had the right. They’ve shouldered that part of it themselves.”
“And they’ve got us into trouble,” said Bob. “There’s something off color about Don Ramon Ortega or he wouldn’t have hired Speake, Gaines, and Clackett to do this directly against my orders.”
“Don Ramon is pretty high in Belize.”
“He’s not what I thought he was.”
“Well, we’re in for it,” laughed Dick.
“In more ways than one,” said Bob moodily.
“We’re bound for the Izaral again, and will probably save that devoted outfit of ’breeds commanded by General Mendez.”
“If I can get out of here they’ll never put this boat into the River Izaral.”
“That’s all right!” exclaimed Dick. “But what could you do? There are four against us, counting the don—two to one.”
“I’ll do my best. As for Gaines, Speake, and136 Clackett, they wouldn’t dare lay hands on me. I can take care of the don, I guess!” Bob’s gray eyes flashed dangerously.
“They’ll not let us out of here, old ship,” said Dick. “Gaines and the rest know their business.”
The steel room was as solid as a prison cell. There were small ventilators for admitting fresh air, but these were no larger than loopholes. Apart from the ventilators there were absolutely no other openings in the metal walls except the closed doors.
Bob laid down on the cot again and continued turning the situation over in his mind.
The thing that worried him was the possibility of the cruiser Seminole putting in at Belize with orders for the Grampus—orders which might have something to do with the sale of the boat to the United States government.
Bob, who was in Captain Nemo, junior’s, confidence more than any of the others, understood that such a sale was the object for which the captain was striving—that it was that, and nothing else, which had led him to bring the submarine into Central American waters. And now to have the captain run the risk of losing a sale through the misguided and utterly unwarranted action of Speake, Clackett, and Gaines was a hard thing to bear.
Yet Bob could see no way out of the difficulty. Gaines and his two shipmates were determined to help the don, and the boat was well along toward the Izaral.
For three or four hours Bob lay sleeplessly on his cot, listening to the hum of the motor and rolling back and forth with the rough swaying of the boat.
Then, suddenly, he was brought up with a start. The steady song of the cylinders had given way to an ineffectual popping, and he knew that something had137 gone wrong. The propeller ceased its revolutions, and the submarine came to a dead stop and rolled helplessly in the swell.
“Something’s busted,” remarked Dick, sitting up.
Muffled voices could be heard and sounds of movements as though one of the crew were going aft to the engine room. Again and again the noise reached Bob’s ears, but the motor would not take the spark properly.
After half an hour of this, some one banged a fist sharply against the other side of the door.
“Bob!” called the voice of Gaines.
“Well?” answered the young motorist.
“You’ll have to go and fix up the motor. I’ll be hanged if I can do it.”
“You’re running the boat,” said Bob. “Fix it up yourself.”
“I tell you it’s too many for me!”
“You ought to have thought that something like that might happen before you started out. You’re in trouble now, so get out of it the best you can.”
Bob, highly enjoying the situation, settled back on his cot.
“Something has got to be done quick,” cried Gaines, “for we’re in danger!”
“What sort of danger?” Bob had bounded from the cot and was close to the door as he spoke.
“There’s a line of reefs on the port side, and the current is drawing us that way! Unless we get the propeller to work in less than fifteen minutes the Grampus will be wrecked!”
“Open the door!” said Bob sharply.
“You won’t make us any trouble?” parried Gaines.
“Open the door, I tell you!” shouted Bob. “We haven’t a minute to lose!”
Without a promise to bind him as to his future138 course, Bob was allowed to leave the steel room. Paying no attention to the don, who was standing in the periscope chamber, he rushed through another door, dropped down a narrow hatch, and crawled aft to the motor room.