“Wha’chee want?” he asked.
“Is this yours?” inquired Bob, producing the chopstick and studying the Chinaman’s face attentively as he did so.
The brim of the old slouch hat—which the yellow man had kept on while sleeping—shaded his eyes, so that Bob’s view was not as good as he would have liked to have it. So far as Bob could discover, not a shadow of guilt crossed Ah Sin’s face. Thrusting one hand into the breast of his blouse he drew out the mate to the chopstick Bob was holding, a grateful grin split his countenance, and he caught the piece of ebony out of Bob’s hand.
“Me losee um, huh?” he chuckled. “My no savvy how me losee um.”
“Go up the hatch to the periscope room,” ordered Bob.
If Ah Sin was surprised at the command he cloaked his feelings admirably.
Without a word he left the torpedo room, climbed to the deck above, and gained the periscope chamber. Bob pounded on the door of Glennie’s quarters, and the ensign quickly opened the door.
“What’s wanted?” he asked.
“Take this Chinaman in there with you, Mr. Glennie,” said Bob, “and watch him.”
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“What’s he been doing?”
“I don’t know that he’s been doing anything. I just want him watched, that’s all, and you can do it better than any one else.”
Glennie stared for a moment, then jerked the Chinaman inside and closed the door.
As Bob turned away, he was conscious of the steady song of the cylinders. Again the motor had taken up its cycle properly—proof that the gasoline secured by Dick in Port of Spain was of the right sort.
“I’ll take the wheel, Speake,” said Bob. “Go to the torpedo room and turn in.”
“What was wrong with the motor?” queried Speake, as he gave up the wheel.
“Water in the carburetor.”
“Chink put it there?”
“Why should he do that?” returned Bob.
“That’s too much for me, Bob, unless he did it by mistake, same as he exploded the gas in that reserve tank.”
“I don’t know how the water got in the tank, Speake, and it may have been accident quite as much as design.”
Speake left Bob to his lonely vigil. The gleam of the little searchlight, reaching out ahead of the submarine, flung an odd picture on the periscope mirror. The edges of the mirror were shrouded in darkness, out of which jumped the smooth, oily billows. The waves flashed like gold in the pencil of light.
Bob, holding the Grampus to her course, looked into the periscope absently. He was thinking of the motor’s recent trouble, and of the chopstick lying by the gasoline tank, turning both over in his mind and wondering aimlessly.
Suddenly he lifted his head. An odd note was mixing itself with the croon of the motor and the whir of242 the ventilator fans. The noise was not caused by anything aboard the submarine; of that Bob was positive. It was like the thrashing of a large propeller, growing rapidly in volume as Bob listened.
Under water sounds are carried far. The noise Bob heard was caught by the submerged hulk of the Grampus and re?choed as by a sounding board.
“Half speed, Dick,” he called through the engine-room tube.
As the pace slackened, Bob’s eyes again sought the periscope mirror. Abruptly, out of the gloom that walled in the glow of the searchlight, rushed a steamer, its blotted outline crossing directly the submarine’s course. There were lights along the steamer’s rail, but it was plain her lookouts were asleep or they would have seen the Grampus’ searchlight.
Instantly the young fellow was stirred into strenuous activity.
“Full speed astern—on your life!” he shouted to Dick.
At the same time Bob put the wheel over, hoping to make a turn and get the Grampus on a parallel course with the steamer.
But there was not room, nor time, enough for the turn. Unless the motor stayed the Grampus she was bound to crash into the other vessel.
Dick, however, got the propeller to turning the other way just at the critical moment. The speed of the submarine slackened in answer to the reverse pull, and the stern of the steamer swung by into the gloom with a margin of scarce a dozen feet, leaving the Grampus bobbing in her troubled wake.
“All right now, Dick,” called Bob, in a voice that shook somewhat. “Drive her ahead.”
“What was wrong?” inquired Dick.
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“We just missed a collision with a steamer. Your quick work saved us.”
Dick gave a long whistle, and went on with his work. “A miss is as good as a hundred fathoms, sometimes,” he answered lightly.
The ringing orders and quick work with the engine had aroused none of the sleepers. Carl could be heard babbling excitedly in the tank room, but otherwise the ship’s complement was quiet.
It was with a distinct feeling of relief that Bob caught the first gleam of day as it was reflected by the periscope. As the morning advanced and brightened, he raised a black smudge, as of steamer smoke, on the port quarter. The smoke was bearing along in the direction the submarine was going, and Bob wondered if that was the steamer they had barely missed running into during the night.
Gaines relieved Dick, Clackett took Carl’s place, and Speake came after Ah Sin and ordered him below to get breakfast. When the Chinaman was fairly at work, Speake returned to the engine room and took the wheel. Glennie showed himself when breakfast was ready, and he, Bob, Dick, Carl, and Speake ate their breakfast in the periscope room.
“We must be off British Guiana,” remarked Glennie, stirring the condensed milk and sugar into his coffee. “Will you put in at Georgetown, Mr. Steele?”
“We won’t have to do that, now that we’ve picked you up at Port of Spain,” replied Bob. “We’ve got to make quick time to the Amazon.”
“Iss dot shdeamer der vone ve come pooty near running indo lasdt night?” queried Carl, taking a look into the periscope.
“It’s about an even guess whether it is or not.”
As Sin, who happened to be in the room, took a look at the periscope for himself.
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“Did we come near having a collision last night?” queried Glennie, looking up quickly.
Bob, who wished to be agreeable, narrated the incident.
“We made a lucky miss of it,” remarked the ensign, when Bob had finished. “I’ve no desire to go to the bottom in a steel sarcophagus like the Grampus. Strange I slept through it all, but I was tired, and I suppose I slept rather sounder than usual. That chink,” he added, putting down his cup, “is a poor coffee maker. Or is it the coffee itself that tastes so rank?”
“It’s poor stuff,” spoke up Speake, “an’ I was jest goin’ to say something about the taste. The chink did better yesterday than he’s doin’ this mornin’.”
“Id purns ven id goes town, like id vas a torchlight brocession,” observed Carl luminously. “I don’d like dot, but I vas hungry, so I trink it. Whoosh!”
“It’s certainly hot and bitter,” said Bob, and put down his cup after two or three swallows.
“That steamer is gettin’ closer to us, Bob,” announced Speake, fumbling with the wheel and looking at the periscope.
“Steady, there, Speake!” cautioned Bob.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” muttered Speake, “but my nerves are all in a quiver. She’s small, that steamer; one funnel, black, with a red band. I don’t jest recollect what line—that—is.”
He drawled out the last words.
“Py Jove!” said Carl; “I feel sick py der shdomach, und eferyt’ing iss virling und virling.”
“I’m dizzy, too!” put in Dick.
“And I,” murmured Glennie, setting aside his plate and empty cup. “I—I believe I’ll lie down.”
He got up from the stool on which he was sitting, and floundered to the tap of the locker. Pushing a245 hand around to his hip pocket, he drew out a revolver that interfered with his comfort, dropped it on the floor, and fell back limply.
Dick tried to get to his feet, but his limbs gave out, and he fell sprawling upon Carl. At the same moment Carl straightened out with a gasp, and Speake let go of the wheel and pitched forward to his knees. There he swayed unsteadily for an instant, trying to speak, but the effort was beyond him, and he slowly crumpled downward.
A horrible sensation of helplessness was growing upon Bob, and with it there dawned on his mind a hazy suspicion of villainous work. He struggled upright and staggered to the wheel.
“Gaines!” he called huskily through the motor-room tube.
No answer was returned. Glennie floundered up on one knee.
“What—in the fiend’s—name—is the matter?” he gasped chokingly.
“Clackett!” cried Bob, through the tank-room tube.
Still there was no answer. At just that moment, when Bob was positively sure that all on the ship were caught in the awful spell, Ah Sin shambled through the door.
With all his failing strength Bob flung himself on the Chinaman. Before Ah Sin could dodge out of the way Bob’s arms went round him and his slouch hat was jerked off.
With the hat came the long queue, leaving Ah Sin’s closely cropped head in plain sight.
“T—Tolo!” gurgled Glennie, a wild, incredulous look crossing his face.
He made a superhuman effort to get off the locker, but the last particle of strength left him in a flash, and he rolled backward.