THE MOTION PICTURECOMRADES ABOARDA SUBMARINECHAPTER IHOW IT HAPPENED
THE MOTION PICTURECOMRADES ABOARDA SUBMARINE
“Jack will be back from the express office soon, and then, I take it, if everything is shipshape, this queer contraption they call a diving-boat and named theArgonaut, expects to get away from Baltimore, eh, Oscar?”
“So the Captain told me, Ballyhoo. He has his clearance papers, all right.”
“Huh! Guess the port officials didn’t examine this craft as closely as they might have done in these troublous times, with more than half the world ablaze.”
“Lower your voice a bit, Ballyhoo, when you are referring to the rifles, and that quick-firing gun they’ve got so snugly hidden below. But it’s all fair and square. Every steam craft is allowed one gun for defensive purposes. Some big Atlantic liners have a three-inch gun at the stern, you remember.”
“A very good reason we have, too, for carrying one, Oscar, since the main object of our trip to tropical seas is the recovery of sunken treasure.”
“And don’t forget either, while about it, Ballyhoo, that there’s opposition in the field, a rival expedition headed by that old blockade-runner and adventurer, Captain Badger.”
“That’s right, and we may need our gun badly before we come back again—if we ever do.”
“Well, most of our interest in this wonderful trip doesn’t lie in the chance of finding the stores of gold and silver lying in the old hulks of vessels that were sunk, some of them a hundred or two years ago. We’ve got our own plans to carry out, and could call the venture a glorious success even if we didn’t run across a single Spanish doubloon.”
“Yes, providing the scheme works, as Jack believes it will, and his judgment is worth a whole lot on anything that is connected with motion picture photography. We hope to secure films that are bound to startle the world of screen lovers, showing as they will the up to now unknown secrets lying deep down under the surface of the sea.”
“It’s a great risk we’re taking, but we’ve put over two big jobs so far and why not a third? Those circus films are still going the rounds, and pronounced gilt-edged wherever they are shown.”[1]
“Yes, and our series of pictures depicting wildanimal life in the African jungles have met with great favor too.[2]We’ve been overwhelmed ever since we got back, with all sorts of wildcat offers to undertake new schemes, all of which so far we’ve had to turn down. And yet here we are about to start off on the most hazardous adventure that any one could possibly think of.”
“But this is different, you know, Ballyhoo; and besides it came to us through that old uncle of your mother’s, who has a third interest in the venture, though he was knocked out of accompanying the boat by that bad attack of rheumatism.”
“Well, I wish Jack would hurry up, because I think our Captain acts as if he might be anxious to cast off, and steam down Chesapeake Bay.”
The speakers were a couple of hardy looking well grown boys. They lounged on the little upper deck, if such it could be called, of a very odd-looking craft lying snugly hidden in a certain secluded basin connected with a Baltimore shipyard.
In fact the low, squatty craft was nothing more nor less than a submarine built somewhat after the style of those steel whaleback barges used for carrying huge cargoes of grain on the Northern Lakes.
Money had not been spared in the building and equipping of this craft, which was really owned and controlled by the “Argonaut Submarine Diving-boatCompany,” and constructed for a purpose which has been partly disclosed by the brief conversation between the two boys.
Oscar Farrar and his two chums lived in the town of Melancton in an Eastern State. The boy whom he had been calling by that quaint nickname of “Ballyhoo” was really Jonathan Edwards Jones. For some years he had taken such delight in mimicking the animals usually seen in a menagerie, as well as the “barkers” who tried to coax the gaping public to patronize their side shows, where all manner of freaks were on exhibition, that naturally enough he soon found himself given the name of “Ballyhoo,” which term is often used to designate loud-tongued orators.
The third boy, whom they had mentioned as “Jack,” had Anderson for a surname. He was a positive marvel in connection with anything that had to do with photography in all its branches. His father before him had been devoted to the art, and had spent several years, lost in the wilds of Darkest Africa, a prisoner in the big kraal of a savage black king, from which captivity he had only recently escaped, thanks to the bravery of his son and his chums.
The three comrades were now about to start forth on an expedition that really dwarfed their previous successes by virtue of its daring. This fascinating project had come about in a peculiar fashion which may as well be explained here and now while Oscar and Ballyhoo impatiently await the coming of Jack.
To the Jones home in Melancton had come one day a queer old gentleman who turned out to be an uncle of Ballyhoo’s mother. This Abner Crawley had led an adventurous life, though no one would suspect it to look at his mild blue eyes and hear his mellow, jolly laugh.
He had followed the hazardous profession of a deep sea diver, spending years out in Far Eastern seas, diving with the natives for pearl oysters, and in many ways had managed to accumulate quite a nice little fortune.
The stories he spun to Ballyhoo, Oscar and Jack thrilled them with a boyish desire to also see some of the wonders of that same submarine world. Then, as the old man learned how they had already shown a disposition to do and dare, he began to interest them in his latest and greatest scheme.
It seemed he had been induced to take a third interest in a venture that had for its main object the salvage of certain sunken treasure-ships, which were located on a chart. In many cases these ships had gone down scores and scores of years ago, but in comparatively shallow water, so that it seemed feasible to reach them through the agency of an ordinary diving suit; or better still, with the assistance of a modern submarine built for that express purpose.
The boys of course hastened to read Jules Verne’s startling book, “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” with which they were more or less familiar beforehand. Theirenthusiasm grew by leaps and bounds as they started to discuss the possibilities of their being allowed to join this strange expedition.
Jack, aided and abetted by his father, had conceived the idea that as the undersea boat had been constructed particularly with a view to cruising down at the bottom of the sea, and had unusual facilities for allowing those aboard to see all that went on in subterranean depths, it might be possible to secure a remarkable series of motion pictures disclosing undreamed of wonders, the queer creatures that never came to the surface, as well as the amazing forest of giant plants that grew far down in the ever peaceful valleys of the ocean.
In the end it had worked out just as the scheming old master diver had wished. The boys were given an opportunity to accompany the expedition as representatives of Uncle Abner Crawley. They would be given all sorts of chances to use their camera, and at the same time if fortune favored the work of the divers one half of the Crawley third was to be handed over to them.
And such was the final arrangement that had been made. They had proceeded to Baltimore, made the acquaintance of their intended future companions, taken up their limited quarters aboard the well namedArgonaut, and Jack was even now paying a parting visit to the post office to get final mails, as well as to the express office for an extra supply of films made especially to resist damage by warm, sticky weather in the tropics.
“There he comes at last!” Ballyhoo presently announced, as a boy was discovered heading their way, and well laden with bundles.
Jack turned out to be a well-built young chap, with a thoughtful face, and the glow of an enthusiastic artist in his eyes. He soon climbed aboard the strange boat, after which the Captain’s voice was heard giving orders. Then they could feel the quiver that told them the engines were beginning to work; cables were cast off, and a cheer broke from the group on the shore, some of them laboring men belonging to the shipyard, others relatives of those aboard, or it might be stockholders in the venture.
Soon afterwards they had left the city of Baltimore behind them, and were moving smoothly and swiftly down the bay. After that would come the open sea, with its mysterious influences, its terrible storms, dreaded calms, and all surrounded by the halo of romance of long-gone centuries.
The three boys sat there on the miniature upper deck long after the voyage had really begun, saying little, since their hearts naturally enough were heavy because of the fact that they had finally severed the ties that bound them to the loved ones at home.
And so they started down the great Chesapeake Bay, bound for the tropics.
FOOTNOTES:[1]See “The Motion Picture Comrades’ Great Venture.”[2]See “The Motion Picture Comrades Through African Jungles.”
[1]See “The Motion Picture Comrades’ Great Venture.”
[1]See “The Motion Picture Comrades’ Great Venture.”
[2]See “The Motion Picture Comrades Through African Jungles.”
[2]See “The Motion Picture Comrades Through African Jungles.”