Mr. Damon came to a pause in the compartment from which the diving chamber gave access to the ocean outside. Tom, standing before the sliding steel door, had summoned to him several of his men and was rapidly giving them directions.
"What are you going to do, Tom Swift?" asked the eccentric man.
"I'm going out there to save Ned!" was the quick answer. "He's in the grip of some strange monster of the sea. What it is I don't know, but I'm going to find out. Koku, you come with me!"
"Yes, Master, me come!" said the giant simply, as if Tom had told him to go for a pail of water instead of risking his life.
"Barnes, the electric gun!" cried the young inventor to one of his helpers, while others were getting out the diving suits.
"The electric gun!" exclaimed the man. "Do you mean the small one?"
"No, the largest. The improved one."
"Right, sir! Here you are!"
"Do you mean to say you are going out there, where that monster is, and attack it with a gun?" asked Mr. Hardley.
"That's what I'm going to do!" answered Tom, as he began to put on the suit of steel and rubber, an example followed by Koku.
"But you may be attacked by the monster! You may be killed! You are risking your life!" cried the gold seeker.
"I know it." Tom spoke simply. "Ned would do the same for me!"
"But hold on!" cried Mr. Hardley. "If you are killed there will be no one to navigate this boat to the place of the wreck! You can't desert this way!"
Tom gave the man one look of contempt. "You need have, no fears," he said. "This submarine is under international maritime laws. If I die, Captain Nelson, the next in command, takes charge, and the original orders will be carried out. If it is possible to get the gold for you it will be done. Now let me alone. I've got work to do!"
"Bless my apple cart, Tom, that's the way to talk!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, and he, too, for the first time, seemed ready to break with Hardley. "If I were a bit younger I'd go out with you myself and help save Ned."
"Koku and I can do it—if he's still alive!" murmured the young inventor. "Lively now, boys! Is that gun ready?"
"Yes, and doubly charged," was the answer. "Good! I may need it. Koku, take a gun also!"
"Me take axe, Master," replied the giant.
"Well, perhaps that will be better," Tom agreed. "If two of us get to shooting under the water we may hit one another. Quick, now! The helmets. And, Nash, you work the big searchlight!"
"Aye, aye, sir!" answered the sailor.
The helmets were now put on, and any further orders Tom had to give must come through the telephone, and it was by that same medium that he must listen to the talk of his friends. It was possible for the divers to talk and listen to one another while in the water by means of these peculiarly constructed telephones.
"All ready, Koku?" asked Tom.
"All ready, Master," answered the giant, as he grasped his keen axe.
The inner door of the diving chamber was now opened, and, the water having been pumped out of the chamber since Ned and the sailor had emerged, it was ready for Tom and Koku. They entered, the door was closed, and presently they felt the pressure of water all about them, the sea being admitted through valves in the outer door.
While this was going on Mr. Damon, the gold-seeker, and some of the crew and officers went into the forward chamber to observe the undersea fight against the monster that had attacked Ned.
Suddenly the waters glowed with a greatly increased light, and in this illumination it was seen that the monster, whatever it was, had almost completely enveloped Tom's chum with its five arms.
"What makes it possible to see better?" asked Mr. Damon.
"I've turned on the big searchlight," was the answer. "Mr. Swift had it installed at the last moment. It's the same kind he invented and gave to the government, but he retained the right to use it himself."
"It's a good thing he did!" exclaimed the eccentric man. "Now he can see what he's doing! Poor Ned! I'm afraid he's done for!"
"Look!" exclaimed one of the crew. "Norton, the sailor who went out with Mr. Newton, is trying to kill the monster with his spear!"
This was so. Ned's companion, armed with a lone pole to which he had lashed a knife, was stabbing and jabbing at the black form which almost completely hid Ned from sight. But the efforts of the sailor seemed to produce little effect.
"What in the world can it be?" asked Mr. Damon. "Tom says it isn't an octopus, and it can't be, unless it has lost three of its arms. But what sort of monster is it?"
No one answered him. The powerful searchlight continued to glow, and in the gleam Ned could be seen trying to break away from the grip of the Atlantic beast. But his efforts were unavailing. It was as if he was enveloped in a sort of sack, made in segments, so that they opened and closed over his head. About all that could be seen of him was his feet, encased in the heavy lead-laden boots. The form of the other sailor, who had gone out of the submarine with him, could be seen moving here and there, stabbing at the huge creature.
"Here comes Tom!" suddenly exclaimed Mr. Damon, and the young inventor, followed by the giant Koku, came into view. They had emerged from the diving chamber, walked around the submarine as it rested on the ocean floor, and were now advancing to the rescue. Tom carried his electric rifle, and Koku an axe.
So desperately was Norton engaged in trying to kill the sea beast that had attacked Ned, that for the moment he was unaware of the approach of Tom and Koku. Then, as a swirl of the water apprised him of this, he turned and, seeing them, hastened toward them.
"What is it?" Tom asked through the telephone, this information being given to the watchers in the submarine later, as all they could gather then was by what they saw. "What sort of monster is it?"
"A giant starfish!" answered Norton, speaking into his mouthpiece and the water serving as a transmitting medium instead of wires. "I never knew they grew so big! This one has its five arms all around Mr. Newton!"
"A starfish!" murmured Tom. This accounted for it, and, as he looked at the monster from closer quarters, he saw that Norton had spoken the truth.
Small starfish, or even large ones, two feet or more in diameter, may be seen at the seashore almost any time. Nearly always the specimens cast up on the beach are in extended form, either limp, or dead and dried. In almost every instance they are spread out just as their name indicates, in the conventional form of a star.
But a starfish alive, and at its business of eating oysters or other shell animals in the sea, is not at all this shape. Instead, it assumes the form of a sack, spreading its five radiating arms around the object of its meal. It then proceeds to suck the oyster out of its shell, and so powerful a suction organ has the starfish that he can pull an oyster through its shell, by forcing the bivalve to open.
And it was a gigantic starfish, a hundred times as large as any Tom had ever seen, that had Ned in its grip. The creature had doubtless taken the diver for a new kind of oyster, and was trying to open it. An octopus has suckers on the inner sides of its eight arms. A starfish has little feelers, or "fingers," arranged parallel rows on the inner side of its arms—thousands of little feelers, and these exert a sort of sucking action.
The gigantic starfish had attacked Ned from above, settling down on him so that the head of the diver was at the middle of the creature's body, the five arms, dropping over Ned in a sort of living canopy. And the arms held tightly.
"Come on, Koku, and you, too, Norton!" called Tom through his headpiece telephone. "We'll all attack it at once. I'll fire, and then you begin to hack it. The electric charge ought to stun it, if it doesn't kill the beast!"
Tom's new electric gun, unlike one kind he had first invented, did not fire an electrically charged bullet. Instead it sent a powerful charge of electricity, like a flash of lightning, in a straight line toward the object aimed at. And the current was powerful enough to kill an elephant.
Bracing his feet on the white sand, which gleamed and sparkled in the glare of the searchlight, Tom aimed at the gigantic starfish which had enveloped Ned. Standing on either side of him, ready to rush in and attack with axe and lance, were Koku and Norton.
For an instant Tom hesitated. He was wondering whether the powerful electric charge might not penetrate the body of the starfish and kill his chum.
"But the rubber suit ought to insulate and protect him," mused the young inventor. "Here goes!"
Taking quick aim, Tom pulled the switch, and the deadly charge shot out of the rifle toward the sea monster.
For an instant after the electrical charge had been fired nothing seem to happen. The giant starfish still enveloped Ned Newton in its grip, while Tom and his two companions stood tensely waiting and those in the submarine looked anxiously out through the thick glass windows.
Then, as the powerful current made itself felt, those watching saw one of the arms slowly loosen its grip. Another floated upward, as a strand of rope idly drifts in the current. Tom saw this, and called through his telephone:
"He's feeling it! Go to him, boys! Koku, you with the axe!"
They needed no second urging.
Springing toward the monster, Koku with upraised axe and Norton with the lance, they attacked the starfish. Hacking and stabbing, they completed the work begun by Tom's electric gun. With one powerful stroke, even hampered as he was by the heavy medium in which he operated, Koku lopped off one of the legs. Norton thrust his lance deep into the body of the monster, but this was hardly needed, for the starfish was now dead, and gradually the remaining arms relaxed their hold.
Pushing with their weapons, the giant and the sailor now freed Ned from the bulk of the creature, which floated away. It was almost immediately attacked by a school of fish that seemed to have been waiting for just this chance. Ned Newton was freed, but for a moment he staggered about on the floor of the sea, hardly able to stand.
"Are you all right, Ned? Did he pierce your suit?" asked Tom, anxiously through the telephone.
"Yes, I'm all right," came back the reassuring answer. "I'm a bit cramped from the way he held me, but that's all. Guess he found this suit of rubber and steel too much for his digestion."
Slowly, for Ned was indeed a bit stiff and cramped, they made their way back to the submarine, passing through a vast horde of small fishes which had been attracted by the dismemberment of the monster that had been killed.
"There'll be sharks along soon," said Tom to Ned through the telephone. "They're not going to miss such a gathering of food as these small fry present. And sharks will present a different emergency from starfish."
Tom spoke truly, for a little later, when they were all once more safely within the submarine, looking through the windows, they saw a school of hungry sharks feeding on the millions of small fish that gathered to eat the creature that had attacked Ned.
"What did you think was happening to you out there?" asked Tom, when the diving suits had been put away.
"I didn't know what to think," was the answer. "I was prospecting around, and I leaned over to pick up a particularly beautiful bit of coral. All at once I felt something over me, as a cloud sometimes hides the sun. I looked up, saw a big black shape settling down, and then I felt my arms pinned to my sides. At first I thought it was an octopus, but in a moment I realized what it was. Though I never thought before that starfish grew so large."
"Nor I," added Tom. "Well, you've had an experience, to say the least."
They remained a little longer in the vicinity, Tom and his officers making observations they thought would be useful to them later, and then the submarine went up to the surface.
They cruised in the open the rest of that day, recharging the storage batteries and getting ready for the search which, Tom calculated, would take them some time. As he had explained, it would not be easy to locate the Pandora in the fathomless depths of the sea.
Ned and Mr. Damon did some fishing while they were on the surface, and, as their luck was good, there was a welcome change from the usual food of the M. N. 1. Though, as Tom had installed a refrigerating plant, fresh meat could be kept for some time, and this, in addition to the tinned and preserved foods, gave them an ample larder.
"When are we going to begin the real search for the gold?" asked Mr. Hardley that evening.
"I should say in another day or two," Tom answered, after he had consulted the charts and made calculations of their progress since leaving their dock. "We shall then be in the vicinity of the place where you say the Pandora went down, and, if you are sure of your location, we ought to be able to come approximately near to the location of the gold wreck."
"Of course I am sure of my figures," declared Mr. Hardley. "I had them directly from the first mate, who gave them to the captain."
"Well, it remains to be seen," replied Tom Swift. "We'll know in a few days."
"And I hope there will be no more taking chances," went on the gold-seeker. "I don't see any sense in you people going out in diving suits to fight starfish. We need those suits to recover the gold with, and it's foolish to take needless risks."
His tone and manner were dictatorial, but Tom said nothing. Only when he and Mr. Damon were alone a little later the eccentric man said:
"Tom will you ever forgive me for introducing you to such a pest?"
"Oh, well, you didn't know what he was," said Tom good-naturedly. "You're as badly taken in as I am. Once we get the gold and give him his share, he can get off my boat. I'll have nothing more to do with him!"
Not wishing to navigate in the darkness, for fear of not being able to keep an accurate record of the course and the distance made Tom submerged the craft when night came and let her come to rest on the bottom of the sea. He calculated that two days later they would be in the vicinity of the Pandora.
The night passed without incident, situated, as they were, on the sand about three hundred feet below the surface; and after breakfast Tom announced that they would go up and head directly for the place where the Pandora had foundered.
The ballast tanks were emptied, the rising rudder set, and the M. N. 1 began to ascend. She was still several fathoms from the surface when all on board became aware of a violent pitching and tossing motion.
"Bless my postage stamp, Tom!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, "what's the matter now?"
"Has anything gone wrong?" demanded Mr. Hardley.
"Nothing, except that we are coming up into a storm," answered the young inventor. "The wind is blowing hard up above and the waves are high. The swell makes itself felt even down here."
Tom's explanation of the cause of the pitching and rolling of the submarine proved correct. When they reached the surface and an observation was taken from the conning tower, it was seen that a terrific storm was raging. It was out of the question to open the hatches, or the M. N. 1 would have been swamped. The waves were high, it was raining hard and the wind blowing a hurricane.
"Well, here's where we demonstrate the advantage of traveling in a submarine," announced Tom, when it was seen that journeying on the surface was out of the question. "The disturbance does not go far below the top. We'll submerge and be in quiet waters."
He gave the orders, and soon the craft was sinking again. The deeper she went the more untroubled the sea became, until, when half way to the bottom, there was no vestige of the storm.
"Are we going to lie here on the bottom all day, or make some progress toward our destination?" asked the gold-seeker, when Tom came into the main cabin after a visit to the engine room. "It seems to me," went on Mr. Hardley, "that we've wasted enough time! I'd like to get to the wreck, and begin taking out the gold."
"That is my plan," said Tom quietly. "We will proceed presently—just as soon as navigating calculations can be made and checked up. If we travel under water we want to go in the right direction."
His manner toward the gold-seeker was cool and distant. It was easy to see that relations were strained. But Tom would fulfill his part of the contract.
A little later, after having floated quietly for half an hour or so, the craft was put in motion, traveling under water by means of her electric motors. All that day she surged on through the salty sea, no more disturbed by the storm above than was some mollusk on the sandy bottom.
It was toward evening, as they could tell by the clocks and not by any change in daylight or darkness, that, as the submarine traveled on, there came a sudden violent concussion.
"What's that?" cried Mr. Damon.
"We've struck something!" replied Tom, who was with the others in the cabin, the navigation of the craft having been entrusted to one of the officers. "Keep cool, there's no danger!"
"Perhaps we have struck the wreck!" exclaimed Mr. Hardley.
"We aren't near her," answered the young inventor. "But it may be some other half-submerged derelict. I'll go to see, and—"
Tom's words were choked off by a sudden swirl of the craft. She seemed about to turn completely over, and then, twisted to an uncomfortable angle, so that those within her slid to the side walls of the cabin, the M. N. 1 came to an abrupt stop. At the same time she seemed to vibrate and tremble as if in terror of some unknown fate.
"Something has gone wrong!" exclaimed Tom, and he hurried to the engine room, walking, as best he could with the craft at that grotesque angle. The others followed him.
"What's the matter, Earle?" asked Tom of his chief assistant.
"One of the rudders has broken, sir," was the answer. "It's thrown us off our even keel. I'll start the gyroscope, and that ought to stabilize us."
"The gyroscope!" cried Tom. "I didn't bring it. I didn't think we'd need it!"
For a moment Earle looked at his commander. Then he said:
"Well, perhaps we can make a shift if we can repair the broken rudder. We must have struck a powerful cross current, or maybe a whirlpool, that tore the main rudder loose. We've rammed a sand bank, or stuck her nose into the bottom in some shallow place, I'm afraid. We can't go ahead or back up."
"Do you mean we're stuck, as we were in the mud bank?" asked Mr. Hardley.
"Yes," answered Tom, and Earle nodded to confirm that version of it.
"But we'll get out!" declared Tom. "This is only a slight accident. It doesn't amount to anything, though I'm sorry now I didn't take my father's advice and bring the gyroscope rudder along. It would have acted automatically to have prevented this. Now, Mr. Earle, we'll see what's to be done."
All night long they worked, but when morning came, as told by the clocks, they were still in jeopardy.
And then a new peril confronted them!
Earle, coming from the crew's quarters, spoke to Tom quietly in the main cabin.
"We'll have to turn on one of the auxiliary air tanks," he said. "We've consumed more than the usual amount on account of the men working so hard, and we used one of the compressed air motors to aid the electrics. We'll have to open up the reserve tank."
"Very well, do so," ordered Tom.
But a grim look came to his face when Earle, returning a little later, reported with blanched cheeks:
"The extra tank hasn't an atom of air in it, sir!"
"What do you mean?" asked Tom, in fear and alarm.
"I mean that the valve has been opened in some way—broken perhaps by accident—and all the air we have is what's in the submarine now. Not an atom in reserve, sir!"
"Whew!" whistled Tom, and then he stood up and began breathing quickly.
Already the atmosphere was beginning to be tainted, as it always becomes in a closed place when no fresh oxygen can enter. Without more fresh air the lives of all in the submarine were in imminent peril. And even as Tom listened to the report of his officer, he and the others began gasping for breath.
"Down on your faces!" called Tom to those with him in the cabin. "Lie down, every one! The freshest air is near the floor; the bad air rises, being lighter with carbonic acid. Lie down!"
All obeyed, Tom following the advice he himself gave. It was a little easier to breathe, lying on the tilted cabin floor, but how long could this be kept up? That was a question each one asked himself.
"Is every bit of our reserve air used?" asked Tom, speaking to Earle.
"As far as I can learn, yes, sir. If I had known that the auxiliary tank was empty I wouldn't have ordered the compressed air motor used. But I didn't know."
"No one is to blame," said Tom in a low voice. "It is one of the accidents that could not be foreseen. If there is any blame it attaches to me for not installing the gyroscope rudder. If we had had that when we were caught in the cross current, or the whirlpool swirl, our equilibrium would have been automatically maintained. As it is—"
He did not finish, but they all knew what he meant.
"Bless my soda fountain, Tom!" murmured Mr. Damon, "but isn't there any way of getting fresh air?"
"None without rising to the top," Tom answered. "We'll have to try that. Come with me to the engine room, Mr. Earle. It may be possible we can pull her loose."
They started to crawl on their hands and knees, to take advantage of the purer air at the floor level. The situation of the M. N. 1 was exactly the same as it had been when she ran into the mud bank in the river, with the exception that now she was in graver danger, for the supply of air for breathing was almost exhausted.
Reaching the engine room, where he found the crew lying down to take advantage of the better air near the floor, Tom made a hasty examination of the apparatus. There was still plenty of power left in the storage batteries, but, so far, the motors they operated had not been able to pull the craft loose from where her nose was stuck fast.
"Are the tanks completely emptied?" asked Tom.
"As nearly so as we could manage with the pumps not acting to their full capacity," answered Earle. "If we could turn the craft on a more level keel we might empty them further, and then her natural buoyancy would send her up."
"Then that's the thing to try to do!" exclaimed Tom, his head beginning to feel the heaviness due to the impure air. "We'll move every stationary object over to the port side, and we'll all stand there, or lie there, ourselves. That may heel her over, and help loosen the grip of the sand."
"It's worth trying," said Earle. "Get ready, men!" he called to the crew.
Tom crawled back to the main cabin and told Mr. Damon and the others what was to be attempted.
"Koku, you come and help move things," requested Tom.
"Me move anything!" boasted the giant, who, because of his great strength and reserve power did not seem as greatly affected as were the others.
Going back to the engine room with Koku, Tom assisted, as well as he could, in the shifting of pieces of apparatus, stores and other things that were movable. They all worked at a great disadvantage except Koku, and he did not seem to feel the lack of vitalizing air.
One thing after another was shifted, and still the M. N. 1 maintained the dangerous angle.
"It isn't going to work!" gasped Tom, as he noticed the indicator which told to what angle the craft was still off an even keel. "We'll have to try something else."
"Is there anything to try?" asked Earle, in a faint voice. He was on the point of fainting for lack of air.
Tom looked desperately around. There was one piece of heavy machinery that might be moved to the other side of the engine room. It was bolted to the floor, but its added weight, with that of the crew and passengers, together with what had already been shifted, might turn the trick.
"Let's try to move that!" said Tom faintly, pointing to it.
"It will take an hour to unbolt it," said one of the men.
"Koku!" gasped Tom, pointing to the heavy apparatus. "See if—see if you—"
Tom's breath failed him, and he sank down in a heap. But he had managed to make the giant understand what was wanted.
"Koku do!" murmured the big man. Striding to the piece of machinery, the legs of which were bolted to the floor, Koku got his arms under it. Bending over, and arching his back, so as to take full advantage of his enormous muscles, the giant strained upward.
There was a cracking of bone and sinew, a rasping sound, but the machinery did not leave the floor.
"Him must come!" gasped the giant. "One more go!"
He took a hold lower down. Tom's eyes were dim now, and he could not see well. Some of the men were unconscious.
Then, suddenly, there was a loud, breaking sound, and something tinkled on the steel floor of the submarine engine room. It was the heads of the bolts which Koku had torn loose. Like hail they fell about the giant, and in another instant the big man had pulled loose the machine, weighing several hundreds of pounds. In another moment he shoved it across the floor, toward the elevated side of the craft.
For a second or two nothing happened. Then slowly, very slowly, the M. N. 1 began to heel over.
"She's turning!" some one gasped.
An instant later, freed by this turning motion from the grip of the sand bank, the submarine shot to the surface. Up and up she went, breaking out on the open sea as a great fish darts upward from the hidden depths.
It was the work of only a few seconds for the man nearest it to open the hatch, and then in rushed the life-giving air. Tom and his companions were saved, and by Koku's strength.
"Me say him machine got to come up—him come up!" said the giant, smiling in happy fashion, when, after they had all gulped down great mouthfuls of the precious oxygen, they were talking of their experience.
"Yes, you certainly did it," said Tom, and due credit was given to Koku.
"Never again will I travel without a gyroscope," declared Tom. "I'm almost ready to go back and have one installed now."
"No, don't!" exclaimed the gold-seeker. "We are almost at the place of the wreck."
"Well, I suppose we can travel more slowly and not run a risk like that again," decided Tom. "I'll put double valves on the emergency air tank, so no accident will release our supply again."
This was done, after the broken valves had been repaired, and then, when the machine Koku had torn loose was fastened down again, and the submarine restored to her former condition, a consultation was held as to what the next step should be.
They were in the neighborhood of the West Indies, and another day, or perhaps less, of travel would bring them approximately to the place where the Pandora had foundered. The latitude and longitude had been computed, and then, with air tanks filled, with batteries fully charged, and everything possible done to insure success, the craft was sent on the last leg of her journey.
For two days they made progress, sometimes on the surface, and again submerged, and, finally, on the second noon, when the sun had been "shot," Tom said:
"Well, we're here!"
"You mean at the place of the wreck?" asked Mr. Hardley.
"At the place where you say it was," corrected Tom.
"Well, if this is the place of which I gave you the longitude and latitude, then it's down below here, somewhere," and the gold-seeker pointed to the surface of the sea. It was a calm day and the ocean was the proverbial mill pond.
"Let's go down and try our luck," suggested Tom.
The orders were given, the tanks filled, the rudders set, and, with hatches closed, the M. N. 1 submerged. Then, with the powerful searchlight aglow, the search was begun. Moving along only a few feet above the floor of the ocean, those in the submarine peered from the glass windows for a sight of the sunken Pandora.
All the rest of that day they cruised about below the surface. Then they moved in ever widening circles. Evening came, and the wreck had not been found. The search was kept up all night, since darkness and daylight were alike to those in the undersea craft.
But when three days had passed and the Pandora had not been seen, nor any signs of her, there was a feeling of something like dismay.
"Where is it?" demanded Mr. Hardley. "I don't see why we haven't found it! Where is that wreck?" and he looked sharply at Tom Swift.
"Mr. Hardley," began Tom calmly, as he took a seat in the main cabin, "when we started this search I told you that hunting for something on the bottom of the sea was not like locating a building at the intersection of two streets."
"Well, what if you did?" snapped the gold-seeker. "You're supposed to do the navigating, not I! You said if I gave you the latitude and longitude, down to seconds, as well as degrees and minutes, which I have done, that you could bring your submarine to that exact point."
"I said that, and I have done it," declared Tom. "When we computed our position the other day we were at the exact location you gave me as being the spot where the Pandora foundered."
"Then why isn't she here?" demanded the unpleasant adventurer. "We went down to the bottom at the exact spot, and we've been cruising around it ever since, but there isn't a sign of the wreck. Why is it?"
"I'm trying to explain," replied Tom, endeavoring to keep his temper. "As I said, finding a place on the open sea is not like going to the intersection of two streets. There everything is in plain sight. But here our vision is limited, even with my big searchlight. And being a few feet out of the way, as one is bound to be in making nautical calculations, makes a lot of difference. We may have been close to the wreck, but may have missed it by a few yards."
"Then what's to be done?" asked Mr. Hardley.
"Keep on searching," Tom answered. "We have plenty of food and supplies. I came out equipped for a long voyage, and I'm not discouraged yet. Another thing. The ship may have moved on several fathoms, or even a mile or two, after her last position was taken before she went down. In that case she'd be all the harder to find. And even granting that she sank where you think she did, the ocean currents since then may have shifted her. Or she may be covered by sand."
"Covered by sand!" exclaimed the gold-seeker.
"Yes," replied Tom. "The bottom of the ocean is always changing and shifting. Storms produce changes in currents, and currents wash the sand on the bottom in different directions. So that a wreck which may have been exposed at one time may be covered a day or so later. We'll have to keep on searching. I'm not ready to give up."
"Maybe not. But I am!" snapped out Mr. Hardley.
"What do you mean?" asked the young inventor.
"Just what I said," was the quick answer. "I'm not going to stay down here, cruising about without knowing where I'm going. It looks to me as if you were hunting for a needle in a haystack."
"That's just about what we are doing," and Tom tried to speak good-naturedly.
"Then do you know what I think?" the gold-seeker fairly shot forth.
"Not exactly," Tom replied.
"I think that you don't understand your business, Swift!" was the instant retort. "You pretend to be a navigator, or have men who are, and yet when I give you simple and explicit directions for finding a sunken wreck you can't do it, and you cruise all around looking for it like a dog that has lost the scent! You don't know your business, in my estimation!"
"Well, you are entitled to your opinion, of course," agreed Tom, and both Mr. Damon and Ned were surprised to see him so calm. "I admit we haven't found the wreck, and may not, for some time."
"Then why don't you admit you're incompetent?" cried Mr. Hardley.
"I don't see why I should," said Tom, still keeping calm. "But since you feel that way about it, I think the best thing for us to do is to separate."
"What do you mean?" stormed the other.
"I mean that I will set you ashore at the nearest place, and that all arrangements between us are at an end."
"All right then! Do it! Do it!" cried Mr. Hardley, shaking his fist, but at no one in particular. "I'm through with you! But this is your own decision. You broke the contract—I didn't, and I'll not pay a cent toward the expenses of this trip, Swift! Mark my words! I won't pay a cent! I'll claim the money I deposited in the bank, and I won't pay a cent!"
"I'm not asking you to!" returned Tom, with a smile that showed how he had himself in command. "You put up a bond, secured by a deposit, to insure your share of the expenses—yours and Mr. Damon's. Very well, we'll consider that bond canceled. I won't charge you a cent for this trip. But, mark this, Hardley: What I find from now on, is my own! You don't share in it!"
"You mean that—"
"I mean that if I discover the wreck of the Pandora and take the gold from her, that it is all my own. I will share it with Mr. Damon, provided he remains with me—"
"Bless my silk hat, Tom, of course I'll stay with you!" broke in the eccentric man.
"But you don't share with me," went on the young inventor, looking sternly at the gold-seeker. "What I find is my own!"
"All right—have it that way!" snapped the adventurer. "Set me ashore as soon as you can—the sooner the better. I'm sick of the way you do business!"
"Nothing like being honest!" murmured Ned. But, as a matter of fact, he was glad the separation had come. There had been a strain ever since Hardley came aboard. Mr. Damon, too, looked relieved, though a trifle worried. He had considerable at stake, and he stood to lose the money he had invested with Dixwell Hardley.
"This is final," announced Tom. "If we separate we separate for good, and I'm on my own. And I warn you I'll do my best to discover that wreck, and I'll keep what I find."
"Much good may it do you!" sneered the other. "Perhaps two can play that game."
No one paid much attention to his words then, but later they were recalled with significance.
"Get ready to go up!" Tom called the order to the engine room.
"Where are you going to land me?" asked Mr. Hardley. "I have a right to know that?"
"Yes," conceded Tom, "you have. I'll tell you in a moment."
He consulted a chart, made a few calculations and then spoke.
"I shall land you at St. Thomas," answered the young inventor. "I do not wish to bring my submarine to a place that is too public, as too many questions may be asked. From St. Thomas you can easily reach Porto Rico, and from there you can go anywhere you wish."
"Very well," murmured the malcontent. "But I don't consider that I owe you a cent, and I'm not going to pay you."
"I wouldn't take your money," Tom answered. "And don't forget what I said—that what I find is my own."
The other answered nothing. Nor from then on did he hold much conversation with Tom or any others in the party. He kept to himself, and a day later he was landed, at night, at a dock, and if he said "good-bye" or wished Tom and his friends a safe voyage, they did not hear him.
They were steaming along on the surface the next day, and at noon the submarine suddenly halted.
"What's on now, Tom?" asked Ned, as he saw his chum prepare to go up on deck with some of the craft's officers.
"We're going to 'shoot the sun' again," was the answer. "I want to make sure that we were right in our former calculations as to the position of the Pandora. The least error would throw us off."
Using the sextant and other apparatus, some of which Tom had invented himself, the exact position of the submarine was calculated. As the last figure was set down and compared with their previous location, one of the men who had been doing the computing gave an exclamation.
"What's the matter?" asked Tom.
"Look!" was the answer, and he pointed to the paper. "There's where a mistake was made before. We were at least two miles off our course."
"You don't say so!" exclaimed Tom, and, taking the sheet, he went rapidly over the results.
All waited eagerly for Tom Swift to verify the statement of the other mathematician, and the young inventor was not long in doing this, for he had what is commonly known as a "good head for figures."
"Yes, I see the mistake," said Tom. "The wrong logarithm was taken, and of course that threw out all the calculations. I should say we were nearer three miles off our supposed location than two miles."
"Does that mean," asked Mr. Damon, "that we began a search for the wreck of the Pandora three miles from the place Hardley told us she was."
"That's about it," Tom said. "No wonder we couldn't find her."
"What are you going to do?" Ned wanted to know.
"Get to the right spot as soon as possible and begin the search there," Tom answered. "You see, before we submerged as nearly as possible at the place where we thought the Pandora might be on the ocean bottom. From there we began making circles under the sea, enlarging the diameter each circuit.
"That didn't bring us anywhere, as you all know. Now we will start our series of circles with a different point as the center. It will bring us over an entirely different territory of the ocean floor."
"Just a moment," said Ned, as the conference was about to break up. "Is it possible, Tom, that in our first circling that we covered any of the ground which we may cover now? I mean will the new circles we propose making coincide at any place with the previous ones?"
"They won't exactly coincide," answered the young inventor. "You can't make circles coincide unless you use the same center and the same radius each time. But the two series of circles will intersect at certain places."
"I guess intersect is the word I wanted," admitted Ned.
"What's the idea?" Tom wanted to know.
"I'm thinking of Hardley," answered his chum. "He might assert that we purposely went to the wrong location with him to begin the search, and if we afterward find the wreck and the gold, he may claim a share."
"Not much he won't!" cried Tom.
"Bless my check book, I should say not!" exclaimed Mr. Damon.
"Hardley broke off relations with us of his own volition," said Tom. "He 'breached the contract,' as the lawyers say. It was his own doing.
"He has put me to considerable expense and trouble, not to say danger. He was aware of that, and yet he refused to pay his share. He accused me of incompetence. Very well. That presuggested that I must have made an error, and it was on that assumption that he said I did not know my business. Instead of giving me a chance to correct the error, which he declared I had made, he quit—cold. Now he is entitled to no further consideration.
"An error was made—there's no question of that. We are going to correct it, and we may find the gold. If we do I shall feel I have a legal and moral right to take all of it I can get. Mr. Hardley, to use a comprehensive, but perhaps not very elegant expression, may go fish for his share."
"That's right!" asserted Mr. Damon.
"I guess you're right, Tom," declared Ned. "There's only one more thing to be considered."
"What's that?" asked the young inventor.
"Why, Hardley himself may find out in some way that we were barking up the wrong tree, so to speak. That is, learn we started at the wrong nautical point. He may get up another expedition to come and search for the gold and—"
"Well, he has that right and privilege," said Tom coolly. "But I don't believe he will. Anyhow, if he does, we have the same chance, and a better one than he has. We're right here, almost on the ground, you might say, or we shall be in half an hour. Then we'll begin our search. If he beats us to it, that can't be helped, and we'll be as fair to him as he was to us. This treasure, as I understand it, is available to whoever first finds it, now that the real owners, whoever they were, have given it up."
"I guess you're right there," said Mr. Damon. "I'm no sea lawyer, but I believe that in this case finding is keeping."
"And there isn't one chance in a hundred that Hardley can get another submarine here to start the search," went on Tom. "Of course it's possible, but not very probable."
"He might get an ordinary diving outfit and try," Ned suggested.
"Not many ordinary divers would take a chance going down in the open sea to the depth the Pandora is supposed to lie," Tom said. "But, with all that, we have the advantage of being on the ground, and I'm going to make use of that advantage right away."
He gave orders at once for the M. N. 1 to proceed, and this she did on the surface. It was decided to steam along on the open sea until the exact nautical position desired was reached. This position was the same Mr. Hardley had indicated, but that position was not before attained, owing to an error in the calculations.
As all know, to get to a certain point on the surface of the ocean, where there is no land to give location, a navigator has to depend on mathematical calculations. The earth's surface is divided by imaginary lines. The lines drawn from the north to the south poles are called meridians of longitude. They are marked in degrees, and indicate distance east or west of the meridian of, say, Greenwich, England, which is taken as one of the centers. The degrees are further divided into minutes and seconds, each minute being a sixtieth of a degree and each second, naturally, the sixtieth of a minute.
Now, if a navigator had to depend only on the meridian lines indicating distance east and west, he might be almost any distance north or south of where he wanted to go. So the earth is further divided into sections by other imaginary lines called parallels of latitude. As all know, these indicate the distance north or south of the middle line, or the equator. The equator goes around the earth at the middle, so to speak, running from east to west, or from west to east, according as it is looked at. The meridian of Greenwich may be regarded as a sort of half equator, running half way around the earth in exactly the opposite direction, or from north to south.
The place where any two of these imaginary lines, crossing at right angles, meet may be exactly determined by the science of navigation. It is a complicated and difficult science, but by calculating the distance of the sun above the horizon, sometimes by views of stars, by knowing the speed of the ship, and by having the exact astronomical time at hand, shown on an accurate chronometer, the exact position of a ship at any hour may be determined.
By this means, if a navigator wants to get to a place where two certain lines cross, indicating an exact spot in the ocean, he is able to do so. He can tell for instance when he has reached the place where the seventy-second degree of longitude, west from Greenwich, meets and crossed the twentieth parallel of latitude. This spot is just off the northern coast of Haiti. Other positions are likewise determined.
It was after about an hour of rather slow progress on the surface of the calm sea, no excess speed being used for fear of over-running the mark, that Tom and his associates gathered on deck again to make another calculation.
Long and carefully they worked out their position, and when, at last, the figures had been checked and checked again, to obviate the chance of another error, the young inventor exclaimed:
"Well, we're here!"
"Really?" cried Ned.
"No doubt of it," said his chum.
"Bless my doormat!" cried Mr. Damon. "And do you mean to say, Tom Swift, that if we submerge now we'll be exactly where the Pandora lies, a wreck on the floor of the ocean.
"I mean to say that we're at exactly the spot where Hardley said she went down," corrected Tom, "and we weren't there before—that is not so that we actually knew it. Now we are, and we're going down. But that doesn't guarantee that we'll find the wreck. She may have shifted, or be covered with sand. All that I said before in reference to the difficulty in locating something under the surface of the sea still holds good."
Once more, to make very certain there was no error, the figures were gone over, Then, as one result checked the other, Tom put away the papers, the nautical almanac, and said:
"Let's go!"
Slowly the tanks of the M. N. 1 began to fill. It was decided to let her sink straight down, instead of descending by means of the vertical rudders. In that way it was hoped to land her as nearly as possible on the exact spot where the Pandora was supposed to be.
"How deep will it be, Tom?" asked Ned, as he stood beside his chum in the forward observation cabin and watched the needle of the gauge move higher and higher.
"About six hundred feet, I judge, going by the character of the sea bottom around here. Certainly not more than eight hundred I should say." And Tom was right. At seven hundred and eighty-six feet the gauge stopped moving, and a slight jar told all on board that the submarine was again on the ocean floor.
"Now to look for the wreck!" exclaimed Tom. "And it will be a real search this time. We know we are starting right."
"Are you going to put on diving suits and walk around looking for her?" asked Ned.
"No, that would take too long," answered Tom. "We'll just cruise about, beginning with small circles and gradually enlarging them, spiral fashion. We'll have to go up a few feet to get off the bottom."
As Tom was about to give this order Ned looked from the glass windows. The powerful searchlight had been switched on and its gleams illuminated the ocean in the immediate vicinity of the craft.
As was generally the case, the light attracted hundreds of fish of various shapes, sizes, and, since the waters were tropical, beautiful colors. They swarmed in front of the glass windows, and Ned was glad to note that there were no large sea creatures, like horse mackerel or big sharks. Somehow or other, Ned had a horror of big fish. There were sharks in the warm waters, he well knew, but he hoped they would keep away, even though he did not have to encounter any in the diving suit.
Slowly the submarine began to move. And as she was being elevated slightly above the ocean bed, to enable her to proceed, Ned uttered an exclamation and pointed to the windows.
"Look, Tom!" he cried.
"What is it?" the young inventor asked.
"Snakes!" whispered his chum. "Millions of 'em! Out there in the water! Look how they're writhing about!"
Tom Swift laughed.
"Those aren't snakes!" he said. "That's serpent grass—a form of very long seaweed which grows on certain bottoms. It attains a length of fifty feet sometimes, and the serpent weed looks a good deal like a nest of snakes. That's how it got its name. I didn't know there was any here. But we must have dropped down into a bed of it."
"Any danger?" asked Ned.
"Not that I know of, only it may make it more difficult for us to see the wreck of the Pandora."
As Tom turned to leave the cabin the submarine suddenly ceased moving. And she came to a gradual stop as though she had been "snubbed" by a mooring line.
"I wonder what's the matter!" exclaimed Tom. "We can't have come upon the wreck so soon."
At that moment a man entered the cabin.
"Trouble, Mr. Swift!" he reported.
"What kind?" asked Tom.
"Our propellers are tangled with a mass of serpent weed," was the answer. "They're both fouled, and we can't budge."
"Bless my anchor chain!" ejaculated Mr. Damon. "Stuck again!"