Chapter VIII: The Overturned Boat

Matt's heaviness of spirit was reflected in his face.

"Don't be discouraged," said the captain. "We'll cruise around in this part of the gulf and I feel pretty sure we'll find your friends. It would have been difficult to locate them during the storm, and the _Grampus_ might have passed within a cable's length of the whaleboat without seeing it or being seen; but, on a day like this, we've got the range of the ocean for miles, and the whaleboat can't get away from us!"

"Providing it's afloat," replied Matt apprehensively.

"Breakfast!" yelled Cassidy from the periscope room.

"That means us," said Captain Nemo, Jr.

The present complement of the submarine consisted of the captain, mate and three men. The duties of the captain and mate kept them constantly in the periscope room and conning tower. Gaines had charge of the hundred and twenty horse-power gasoline motor, Clackett looked after the trimming tanks, and Speake was general utility, taking care of the electric supply and compressed air and preparing the meals. Each had his particular station, and when the boat was running the officers rarely saw any of the crew.

Gaines' room was aft, Clackett's was nearer the waist of the boat, and Speake was forward in the torpedo room.

There being no use for the torpedo room during peaceable cruising, it was transformed into a galley, and here Speake prepared the meals on an electric range.

During breakfast Speake relieved Gaines at the motor, and Cassidy took the lookout. Gaines, Clackett, Captain Nemo, Jr., and Matt crowded into the little messroom, dropped down on low stools and drank their hot coffee and ate their crackers and boiled eggs.

When Matt and the captain had finished they went up and relieved Cassidy and sent him down. Matt seated himself on the deck at the base of the conning tower, the captain taking the elevated position in the top of the tower.

"While I'm using the glasses, and you're using your eyes, Matt," said the captain, "we might as well talk and try to understand the causes that brought you and your chums into this situation. I was curious on that point last night, but didn't want to bother you when you were so tired and worried."

"If you were surprised to see me, captain," returned Matt, "you can imagine how astounded I was to find you and the _Grampus_."

"The wind was taken out of my sails completely when I learned that you and your friends had sailed on the _Santa Maria_."

"Then you didn't send us three tickets and ask us to sail on the steamer for British Honduras?"

"Certainly not! That was part of the plan for getting you away. Sixty must have laid the plan and trusted to his daughter to carry it out."

"His daughter?"

"Yes. She was the girl who called on you at the hotel shortly before the steamer sailed--Ysabel Sixty. Captain Sixty married a Spanish woman in Cuba, and the girl was their only child."

"She used pretty good English when she talked with me."

"That's because she has passed most of her life in the United States, while her father has been engaged in questionable work all over the high seas."

"She said she was your niece, that her mamma was Sadie Harris, and that she had come to New Orleans as soon as she heard that you were sick."

The captain smiled grimly.

"Sixty told her what to say," he answered.

"But," and Matt's surprise took another tack, "how do you happen to know that she called on me at the hotel?"

"Clackett found that out. I sent him to the hotel to ask you and your chums to come to Stuyvesant Dock and board the _Grampus_. Cassidy was to bring the submarine down from Westwego. But let's begin at the beginning and get at this thing with some sort of system."

Matt led off with an account of the mixed messages, following this with a description of the girl and of what had transpired during their interview, and then finishing with what had taken place on the steamer.

The captain, although he kept the binoculars sweeping the sea, was absorbed in the recital.

"What name was signed to that message that fell into your hands by mistake?" he asked.

"I didn't pay any attention to the name," Matt replied. "I read the message to make sure it wasn't for me, but I didn't read the signature."

"What was the message?"

"It merely gave a position by latitude and longitude with the added words, 'two days ago--no wind and no drift since.'"

The captain showed signs of suppressed excitement.

"What was the latitude and longitude?" he asked. "Can you remember it?"

"No," said Matt. "I knew it did not concern me, so I failed to charge my mind with it."

"It concerned you more than you know. I am positive that Sixty lured you aboard the steamer because he feared you had learned something from the telegram which you could use to his disadvantage. What was your message--the one that Sixty got and read?"

"It was from a man who didn't know our air ship had been wrecked and destroyed. He wanted to buy her, and referred us to you, saying that he knew you."

"My name was mentioned in the telegram?"

"The name of Townsend was mentioned."

"Ah! The cause of Sixty's work is becoming clearer and clearer. He knew I was a friend of yours, that the government had asked me to watch him, and that you had had a chance to secure some important information from the telegram. It was enough to make a man like Sixty try something desperate!"

"You were watching him?" queried Matt, "and for the government?"

"Yes. Sixty has been a trader in the South Seas, but lately he has caused the government to suspect him of an attempt to smuggle arms and ammunition to Central America to help out some revolutionists there. His brig, the _Dolphin_, cleared from New Orleans a few weeks ago, having dropped in at that port from across the ocean, and has since mysteriously vanished. It has been something like a week since Sixty showed up in New Orleans again. The government had communicated with me before I came to the South, asking me to locate the _Dolphin_, follow her and see what she was up to. If I couldn't find the brig I was to follow Sixty. That was the business on which I wanted your aid, but I couldn't tell you anything about it until the time came for us to act. You see, I didn't want Sixty to think that he was being watched. When Clackett, who was shadowing Sixty, brought me word that he had just seen him leaving New Orleans on the _Santa Maria_, I immediately made preparations to follow the steamer; and I was more anxious than ever to trail her when Clackett reported that you and your friends, as well as Sixty, were on the boat. I knew, at once, that there was some crooked work afoot.

"We gained on the steamer in the river, and came within sight of her two or three hours after she had reached the gulf. We submerged the _Grampus_ until the periscope ball was just awash and trailed along in her wake. On the periscope table I saw some one drop overboard, and we immediately emptied our ballast tanks and came to the surface. I was surprised enough when I found that it was you who was in the water, Matt. We were too far away to see Sixty throw you over the rail. The truth of the matter is, Sixty is afraid of you--afraid you would tell me what was contained in that telegram. The bearings set forth by that latitude and longitude must have been mighty important!"

"Your work for the government," commented Matt, "in spite of the way you guarded it, must have become known to Sixty."

"Yes; but he did not learn it through me. Some one in Washington must have kept him informed."

"The girl also seemed to have a pretty good knowledge of the fact that I was going to help you."

"Sixty may have inferred that, and if the girl talked guardedly with you she might still further have developed the point."

"That's exactly what she did!" exclaimed Matt, with sudden divination. "I can see now that she was playing a part all the time. I don't think she liked the work, but that she was forced to do it by her father."

"Sixty's a rough old webfoot, and when his unscrupulous mind counsels a course he's not at all particular as to the ways and means by which he keeps to it."

"How would throwing me overboard help him any?"

"If he had put you out of the way, you wouldn't have been able to use the knowledge you had acquired from that telegram."

"But there was Dick and Carl. They knew about the message as well as I did."

"Then Sixty would have taken care of them, too."

"What a murderous scoundrel he is!" muttered Matt with a shudder.

"He's all of that and----"

The words died on the captain's lips and, for a moment, he held the glasses rigidly on some object at a distance.

"What is it, captain?" cried Matt, leaping up and straining his eyes, but without being able to see anything.

"Perhaps nothing," answered Nemo, Jr., "I can't tell. But we'll give it the benefit of the doubt and go over that way."

Dropping a hand at his side he pressed a push button which had a wire communicating with the engine room. The signal he gave sent the _Grampus_ on another tack. As she rushed onward the object that had claimed the captain's attention grew slowly on Matt's eyes.

It was an overturned whaleboat, and on one side, in black letters, was the name "_Santa Maria_."

Matt staggered, and laid hold of the rim of the conning tower for support.

What if his chums had lost their lives through that despicable work of Captain Sixty's?