CHAPTER VA Submarine Pickpocket
"GOOD morning, Mr. Thacker; I hope you feel like taking a walk on the bottom of the sea this morning."
The smiling face of Captain Austin greeted Jay as the latter climbed up through the forward hatch of theNemofor a breath of the clear fresh morning air. TheNemohad arrived during the night at her destination and rode gracefully at anchor on an easy swell.
"Never felt better in my life," answered the Brighton boy. The two lads had enjoyed a fine night's rest even in the cramped quarters of a submarine. Pretty soon Dick came climbing on deck, throwing out his chest for an inhalation of the clear balmy ozone.
TheNemowas riding slightly offshore. Because of her light draft she had been enabled to go very close. The pounding of the surf could be plainly heard.
"You see those ships' ribs sticking out of the water directly alongside?" asked the captain,pointing off the starboard quarter of theNemo.
Both boys followed the line of direction. A glass was not necessary, for there, not more than thirty or forty yards away, loomed the three gaunt curved ribs of a ship, clearly outlined against the white of the breaking rollers beyond.
"That's what's left of theDominion," explained the captain. "Not many people know she's here; we're quite a bit out of the regular shipping lines; but that's her all right."
Jay was thrilled at the spectacle. Right there under the water reposed valuable treasure, and he the one who was to dip down deep to clutch it from the depths!
"Expect that ship is pretty well battered to pieces, but have every reason to believe the real booty is still intact," Captain Austin was saying, as several deckmen began dragging various diving paraphernalia on deck.
The chief executive turned to Jay.
"I want you to go down this morning, if you are feeling fit and fine, Mr. Thacker."
Jay indicated he was quite ready and never felt better in his life.
"This chap Weddigen is also going down," continued Austin.
Jay held his tongue, having learned well the lesson of discipline in the navy. Although he distrusted the fellow and knew he nursed a personal grudge, Jay was determined to make the best of the situation.
Dick was to remain on board theNemoand supervise Jay's air and signal lines. Knowing quite well by his long experience that it was foolhardy for a diver to eat but a very little before descending into the pressure of the depths, Jay drank only a glassful of orange juice and a cup of black unsweetened coffee.
By nine o'clock final preparations for the descent were under way. Jay was going off the forward deck of theNemo, and Weddigen was to take off from aft the conning tower. The huge unwieldy diving suit, the clodhopper shoes of iron, the ghoulish looking headgear with its grotesque looking eyes were ready to be donned. TheNemowas anchored to the lee shore of the island; the water was comparatively quiet and there seemed little danger of the "life lines" becoming unmanageable.
"Gee, wish I was going along," sighed Dick a bit wistfully.
Jay grinned. "Never mind, old pal; you'll get your turn all right before this is over. I'll stay my limit, probably not find anything, and then they will send you down."
Captain Austin called Jay and Weddigen together amidships to give them their last instructions. With a stub of a pencil he drew a plan of the wreck as near as he could estimate it from the previous reports of other divers and the ship's owners.
"The ribs sticking out of the water yonder are supposed to be forward of the room where the treasure was stored," he told them. "It is reported that the diamonds are in a small iron safe that was kept in the captain's cabin. The bullion was in iron chests also in the captain's cabin."
He indicated on the rough map where the strong boxes were supposed to lie.
"When theDominionran for the shore," he continued, "she was afire aft and amidships. She struck the sand so hard she buried her nose in the soft ground, and those ribs you see were planted so solidly that the surf was never able to beat them down. You ought to find the captain's cabin about twenty paces aft of the ribs."
Jay examined the crude sketch long and hard, asking many questions to make as sure of his ground as possible. Weddigen scowled and guessed how he would "jes prowl around until he found it."
"Go ahead then, boys, and get in your togs," ordered the captain.
With Dick's assistance Jay was soon ready to go over. The suit securely fastened on to make sure there were no leakages anywhere that would let in water, he sprawled on a deck chair while Dick put on the ponderous twenty-pound shoes that were to help anchor him down. Soon the helmet was adjusted on to the breastplate and the thumb screws set. The eye-pieces were hinged like a ship's porthole windows and not closed until the very last minute.
As Jay was ready for the finishing touches Dick leaned close and peered into the face of his old chum.
"All right, old boy," he comforted. "I'll be right here on this end keeping close watch. If anything happens just give me the emergency quick. And, for the love of Mike, keep your googley-eyes on that bird Weddigen."
Jay smiled, an answering "Yes," and motioned for the eye-pieces to be closed. Immediately the air pump was started, feeding its supply of fresh oxygen to the imprisoned diver. With a man on each side of him Jay scuffed across deck and went over the side on a ladder leading down into the water. Justbefore his helmeted head went under he took one last look around for direction and fixed in his mind the path to be taken in the journey toward theDominion.
Down he went. The sun shone into the water, and with the sand for a background the light in the sea was fairly good.
"Well, here we are—and now for theDominion," Jay chuckled to himself as his feet hit bottom and he started along, using a small peak-nosed shovel as a push-pole to help himself along.
Through his bull's-eyes he could see ahead some distance. Vainly he cast right and left for some trace of Weddigen, but nowhere was his diving companion to be seen.
"I'll just be careful not to run afoul of that big boy's lines down here," Jay told himself. It was not so easy to defend against an attack of any kind under water clad in heavy diving habiliments.
Groping his way forward steadily inch by inch, Jay figured soon he must be in the neighborhood of those ships' ribs. The breathing was good and the air lines were working fine under the expert direction of his chum. These two had teamed together before; always when one of them was down the otherlooked after the equipment above deck, keeping a sharp eye on the air pump to see there was no let-up in its functioning.
Pretty soon Jay saw something looming up directly ahead. For the moment it assumed fantastic shape and the youth was unable to determine whether it was just some sort of an apparition or some tangible substance. But only for a moment.
In another instant the specter of the wrecked ship filtered through the greenish haze of the water into the eyes of the groping diver; a weird spectacle that danced and eddied to the tilt of the waters like the wavering film of a cinematograph.
"By George! there she is," gasped Jay to himself in sheer delight. In spite of his accustomed self-complacency and cool nerve the youth found his pulses fluttering wildly.
"And now to get busy," he murmured to himself, picking his way laboriously over a sand hummock. The sea muck was so loose that the young diver's ponderous shoes settled deep into it at each stride. But the water was clear and the precious oxygen was coming to him in steady relays from theNemo'spump.
"What could have become of that chapWeddigen?" speculated Jay as he strained through the windows of his eyes for some trace of the other diver. Not a hint of him in any direction.
At last the youth came to the side of the wreck. His sense of direction and implicit obedience to instructions had carried him right. He had arrived directly where the nose of theDominionhad imbedded itself in the sand.
"Good enough," he thought, as he gazed upward to where the torn timbers lifted themselves toward the surface of the sea. One glance indicated that theDominionlay listed slightly to port in such a slanting position that her bow was elevated at something like an angle of thirty degrees.
Groping his way along the side of the old freighter the persevering young diver found to his great delight that the tides and deep water currents had banked in sand all along the side of theDominion. Like a pillow ridge this sand supported the weight of the lost cargo-carrier.
"This makes it all the easier; I can walk right aboard without any formalities," laughed Dick as he dropped to his hands and knees. He figured it would be easier going "doggey"fashion than to attempt to walk up the side of the incline and run the risk of sinking deep into the fluid underfooting.
Cautiously he made his way forward. And now the giant proportions of the ship's superstructure were outlined against the green background. The three wide smokestacks loomed ominously in front of him pitched at an angle where they seemed tottering to their fall. The main mast forward with its crow's-nest still intact was poked out like a weird totem pole bereft of all rigging by reason of the lashing given it by the submarine currents.
In a few minutes Jay worked himself up close to the wounded hulk. He could see he had come alongside directly abaft the forward funnel.
"Things seem to be breaking right, for I am right off the particular spot where I want to go aboard," soliloquized the youth as he paused to adjust his air lines.
A port hole eyed him directly in front. Jay was minded to step into the enclosure and thus raise himself into a position where he could grasp the twisted deck rail and pull himself aboard. He endeavored to thrust his right leg into the opening but found the distance too great for the weight of his iron shoe,with the pressure of water against it. Just at that moment his attention was attracted by two oblique lines drawn sharply across his line of vision against the background of the ship's funnels.
"What in the world——"
And then it dawned on him. Weddigen was already aboard. The lines were his air and signal lines.
"Beat me to it, I guess," was his mental comment. This made him only the more determined to get into that cabin at all hazards.
Signaling that he desired to be raised a bit in the water Jay waited until he had been hauled up four or five feet. As his body came abreast of the ship's rail he grasped it firmly with one hand and signalled sharply with the other to stop. It was easy work to clamber over the rail.
And now for the captain's cabin! Groping his way forward along the deck from state room to state room, maintaining his footing on the sloping incline by grasping the battered woodwork, he came at last to a companionway leading below. It was just aft the pilot house, and this, he surmised, was the way to what had once been the quarters of theDominion'sskipper. It was necessary to go slowly and surely, for well this young diver knew the danger of entangled air lines.
As he drew a powerful submarine flashlight from his belt and touched its illumination spring the life lines of his fellow diver brushed his helmet.
"Weddigen got the jump on me, sure enough," he thought.
Floundering along as carefully as he knew how, the Brighton boy let himself down the companionway on the rickety stairs. It was ticklish business. At any moment the air lines might be fouled by the swaying currents and the diver have to fight for his life or perish of suffocation.
"But if that big bully Weddigen can do it, I can do it," he assured himself.
By now he was conscious of a faint glow of light in the subaqueous chamber more remote than the pencil rays of his own flash. This, he figured, was the light of Weddigen. A slight turn to the left and he stepped into the erstwhile domain of theDominion'schief executive.
Through the blur of water a startling picture was unfolded before his eyes. Crouched over a square iron chest, playing the rays ofhis flashlight over an iron strong box, was the figure of a diver. The cover of the chest had been pried off. The diver was transferring the contents of the chest into a long narrow slit of a pocket that bulged from the side of his diving armor!