Chapter XIV: The "grampus" Gets a Clue

For a few minutes Matt and Captain Nemo, Jr., stared at the overturned whaleboat. The captain read the dread suspicions that were passing through the young motorist's mind.

"Courage, my lad," said he, kindly. "Don't give up, yet."

"What else is there to hope for?" asked Matt. "Dick and Carl were in that boat, and they were not able to keep it from filling and turning turtle. If that is what happened, then----"

Matt could not finish. For a moment all the courage was taken out of him.

"If the worst has happened to your friends, Matt," said the captain, gravely, "then this man Sixty is directly, or indirectly, responsible for it. But cheer up. We both know what a resourceful fellow Ferral is, and that Carl is full of pluck and energy. I can't believe that they went down in that storm, even with the evidence of the overturned whaleboat to make us think to the contrary. I'll have Cassidy up and we'll draw closer to the boat and get a better look at her."

With Cassidy on deck, armed with a boathook, the _Grampus_ was driven close alongside the boat. With the boathook, the mate was able to turn the boat partly over, giving those on the submarine a glimpse of her broken bulwarks.

"Ah!" cried Captain Nemo, Jr. "The whaleboat was struck by something--perhaps by some ship. In that event, the boys may have been taken out of the boat, and be as safe, now, as we are."

"What's to be done, captain?" asked Matt. "I don't feel like leaving these waters until I learn something more definite regarding Dick and Carl, but I hardly see how we're going to learn anything by cruising around in this vicinity. If the whaleboat was stove by a ship, and Carl and Dick were taken aboard, then by now they must be a good way from this part of the gulf."

"It won't do any harm to cruise around here for a day or two, anyhow," replied the captain.

"Meanwhile," said Matt, "Captain Sixty is getting away on the _Santa Maria_."

"Then he'll have to get away," returned the captain. "He's only suspected of filibustering, and my orders were simply to keep track of him and discover what he was doing. We'll forget about Sixty and think only of Dick and Carl."

From that moment the _Grampus_ began an aimless wandering through the waters of that part of the gulf. They were delayed three hours, shortly after noon, by a mishap to the gasoline motor. The trouble was too much for Gaines, and Matt was called on to locate the difficulty and repair it.

This was a good thing for Matt, inasmuch as it drew his thoughts from moody conjectures concerning his chums and gave him something important to do in the line of work that he liked best.

An hour after the motor was in working order again, and the _Grampus_ was traveling along at a good clip, Cassidy, who was on the lookout, raised a smudge of smoke on the horizon. The steamer was coming from the south, and was evidently bound for some port to the north, either Mobile or New Orleans. With a desire to speak to her, on the possible chance of learning something about Dick and Carl, the submarine altered her course so as to intersect that of the steamer.

Matt, Nemo, Jr., and Cassidy were on the deck when the _Grampus_ had come close enough to get the steamer in full view.

"Great guns!" exclaimed Cassidy, as his eyes traveled over the vessel's trim lines, "it's the United States cruiser _Seminole_. I know her pretty near as well as I do the _Grampus_."

"Bring up the signal flags and code book, Mr. Cassidy," ordered the captain; "also the megaphone. We'll get into communication with the captain of the cruiser. Even if he can't tell us anything about Dick and Carl, we can talk with him a little about Jim Sixty."

Cassidy was soon back with signal flags, code book and megaphone. While he gave his attention to running up the flags at the short staff of the _Grampus_, Matt handled the code book.

"Have you seen anything of two men who were lost in a small boat during the storm last night?"

This was the first question spelled out by the flags.

With the binoculars, Captain Nemo, Jr., read the answer.

It was "No."

"Wish to communicate with you at closer range," the flags of the submarine next signaled.

"We'll heave to," answered the war ship. "Come up under our lee."

Cassidy dropped the flags through the conning tower hatch, then descended to reach the push buttons and send word to the engine room.

Gracefully the submarine rounded the stern of the _Seminole_ in a wide arc and came to a halt within thirty feet of the big vessel on the starboard side.

"What boat is that?" came from the bridge of the cruiser.

"The submarine _Grampus_, Captain Nemo, Jr., out of New Orleans and acting under orders from the government."

"What orders?"

"To watch a suspected filibuster named James Sixty."

"We've been looking for him and his brig, the _Dolphin_. The _Dolphin_ is said to have been wrecked and is reported as a derelict, dangerous to commerce. We have orders to examine her, if possible, and she can be found, and then to destroy her. Where is Sixty?"

"He left New Orleans under suspicious circumstances aboard the fruiter _Santa Maria_, ostensibly bound for Belize."

"He's not bound for Belize. If he's doing anything, he's hunting for the _Dolphin_, hoping to salvage her cargo or else blow her up and send her to the bottom before any naval officer has a chance to look her over. We're cruising around to see if we can locate the derelict."

"And we're trying to find a couple of young fellows who were torn adrift from the _Santa Maria_ during the storm, last night."

"Any success?"

"Found the whaleboat, stove and floating upside down on the water."

"Then you'd better give up," was the curt remark that closed the conversation.

The cruiser got under headway again and slanted off on a new course.

"You see how it is, captain," said Matt. "Even those on the cruiser think our search is useless."

"We'll keep it up, nevertheless," was the captain's dogged response.

"That's what I'm anxious to have you do, for I don't leave this part of the gulf until I know something more."

Night came on, and the _Grampus_ was still running circles in the waters of the gulf. The sea had quieted down to an abnormal smoothness, and the submarine, with Matt at the engine to relieve Gaines, went on her aimless wanderings.

At midnight Gaines took the engine and gave Matt an opportunity to secure a little rest.

Matt was up for breakfast, and while he, and Captain Nemo, Jr., and Gaines were eating, they heard a muffled detonation, as it might have been of a blast from a great distance. Matt and the captain hurried to the deck, where they found that the mysterious noise had likewise claimed the attention of Cassidy.

"What did it sound like to you, Cassidy?" asked the captain.

"Like a cannon, sir," was the reply, "but it was a powerful ways off."

"That's how it sounded to me."

"What do you think it is?" inquired Matt.

"At a guess," replied the captain, "I should say the cruiser has found the derelict and is trying to break her up. We'll alter our course and see what we can discover."

Just as the _Grampus_ was put on a new tack, there came another of the muffled crashes, which served to give them a further clue as to the location of the firing.

Gaines was told to speed up the motor to the top notch, and the submarine began to cleave her way through the water at her best speed.

Presently Cassidy, who was using the binoculars, declared that he could see a sail. This compelled the captain to alter his views as to the cause of the firing. If there was a sail, then it was impossible that the cruiser was struggling to destroy the derelict.

Just about then another roar of cannon was heard, this time so weirdly distinct that there could be no doubt as to what had caused the report.

"That's cannon, all right," muttered Cassidy, "but why is a schooner doing the shooting?"

"We'll get inside," said the captain, "and submerge until the periscope ball is just awash. It may be well to come into this thing cautiously."

All those on deck descended to the periscope room. Here, as once before, the captain and Matt kept their eyes on the mirror of the periscope table.

Slowly but clearly a schooner came into sight, and also the wreck of a two-masted brig.

"That brig is the derelict," remarked the captain, "and it looks as though the schooner is trying to sink her."

"Mighty queer to find a schooner carrying cannon," observed Cassidy.

"That's right, too," said the captain, plainly puzzled.

"There are two boats alongside the wreck," said Matt, excitedly, "and men are climbing over the bulwarks! What does that mean, captain?"

"Right you are, Matt," muttered the captain, "and I'm in a quandary. We'll come up between the schooner and the brig and investigate before taking any decided action."

On and on the _Grampus_ glided, unseen until, when she had attained the position she desired, she rose upward with a flurry of waves creaming from her deck plates.

From the elevated top of the periscope there was a view of the brig's dismantled deck; and Matt and the captain could see, as plainly as though they were on the derelict, Dick Ferral, gun at his shoulder, standing over the form of Carl. And Captain Sixty's bulky form was equally clear, as well as the figures of the rabble at his heels.

It was an astounding sight for those in the submarine, but it was a sight that left no time for useless words.

"Cassidy," cried Captain Nemo, Jr., with a snap of his lean jaws, "go to the torpedo room, take Speake with you and slip one of the Whiteheads into the port tube. After that, stand by for orders."

"Ay, ay, sir," answered Cassidy, and quickly vanished.

"I'm going up in the tower, Matt," said the captain. "You can crowd in to the lunettes and watch what goes on."

Then the captain made his way up the ladder with Matt tight at his heels. Hardly had Matt got his eyes to the lunette when a ringing thump echoed from the deck plates.

"A rifle shot!" exclaimed Nemo, Jr. "I'll just warn those rascals what they're up against."

As he finished speaking, he pulled the lever that secured the hatch and pushed the iron disk slowly upward.