"Not so far as I can see, but it is pretty thick down here."
"Why not go to the surface?" asked Jack.
"Yes; she knows we are here, all right," Frank added.
"Well, keep to the bottom until you change position, then come to the top and keep dark. Not a light in sight, understand, and the tower up just high enough to keep out the water."
"What are you going to do?" asked Frank.
"I want to get aboard the Shark," was the cool reply.
"Yes; I see you doing it," Frank said.
"I can only try," was the reply. "The boat is headed for Hongkong, where she is to deliver the packet we want. She is to deliver it to Captain Moore on the payment of a certain sum of money, but if the Captain is not there she will turn it over to whoever has the price.
We can"t allow that."
"Of course not; but how are you going to get on board the Shark? If you don"t watch out you"ll be served as you served young Moore."
"The minute the Shark strikes Hongkong," Ned replied, "we will have a thousand places to search for those papers. Before she lands, we have only one."
"You are always right!" cried Frank. "When are you going to make the attempt?"
"That depends. In the meantime, we must get to the surface and in a position where we cannot be seen. If she thinks we have gone away, so much the better."
"I guess our little picnic isn"t over with yet!" laughed Frank. "Are you going to take me on board with you?"
"I"ll be lucky if I can take myself on board," was the reply.
By this time the Sea Lion was some distance from the Shark, and the hatch in the conning tower was open. It was a clear, starlit night, and there would be a moon later on.
There seemed to be great confusion on board the Shark. The boat was brilliantly lighted, and the conning tower stood high above the water.
The ports on the side toward the Sea Lion were open, as if to admit the pure, cool air of the night.
"I believe there"s something the matter with her air supply," Ned said to Frank as the two stood together on the tower. "The ramming she gave us must have done her a lot of mischief. Looks like she was stuck there until help comes."
"The help she ought to have is right here," Frank replied. "I"d like to get that crew on board a man-of-war."
"We have the real criminals," Ned replied.
The boys watched the Shark for a long time. They could see people moving about on the inside, and occasionally a group a.s.sembled on the conning platform, which was much larger than that of the Sea Lion.
"I believe some one is going down in a water suit," Ned said, presently. "The water chamber is on the other side, but she lists as if a weight was pulling at her."
"Listen!" Frank cautioned. "There"s the machinery working. That would be the lowering apparatus. Some one is going down, all right. Now, what for?"
Ten minutes pa.s.sed, and then the waters surged about the Sea Lion, and a great roar and rumble came with the waves which swept into the open hatch. The Shark, too, rocked on the crest of a great wave.
"Dynamite below!" Ned said. "Will there be more than one?"
CHAPTER XVII
BAD FOR THE SEA CREATURES
As Ned spoke there came another upheaval of water, and a louder roar from the sea. The Shark and the Sea Lion both swayed perilously. Ned and Frank closed their hatch and clung to the railing around the conning tower platform.
"Those are torpedoes, all right," Frank said.
"But I don"t understand--"
Ned cut the sentence short as a third reverberation came from beneath the water.
"They think we are down there yet!" Frank said. "I wonder how the man who went down came to make such a mistake?"
"Cheerful sort of people to fight!" Ned said. "Every man on that boat is a murderer at heart."
A pounding on the under side of the hatch was now heard, and Jimmie"s face showed when it was lifted.
"Say," the little fellow said, "Captain Moore wants to speak to you, Ned. These here earthquake shocks have got him goin". He acts like a crazy man."
Ned paid no attention to the request.
"He wants to say that he told me so," Ned said to Jimmie. "Go back and tell him that he ought not to be afraid of his friends on board the Shark."
"Gee!" the little fellow replied. "If he don"t behave himself, I"ll turn the hose on him. He ought to have a salt water bath, anyway. For a long time he"s been tryin" to give us one!"
"Let him alone," Ned ordered.
This second upheaval of the water had swung the Shark around so that the door to the water chamber was in view from the Sea Lion. The boys saw that it was open, probably left in that way for the return of the man who had gone down in the water suit.
The light, shining from the main cabin, filtered through the chamber, which was, of course, under water, only a few inches of the conning tower of the submarine now being above the surface.
"Can they shut that door from the cabin?" Frank asked.
"I presume so," Ned replied. "They ought to be able to shut the door and empty the room as well."
"That can"t be done on the Sea Lion," Frank said.
"No, but that is a detail that was overlooked in the construction of the boat. I was just learning to run the craft, and did not observe the deficiency."
"Well," Frank went on, "they are closing the door, but they are not doing a good job at it. Say," he added, grasping Ned"s arm, "I"ll bet the machinery connecting with the door from the cabin is broken!"
"Then the man who is down below will have to come up and do the opening after he gets up, and after he shuts the outer door and exhausts the water."
"I don"t believe the outer door can be closed."