He followed Zircon"s lead, cutting the light off and on as necessary, as the big scientist moved ahead. The glow grew in intensity, but they were still too far away to see its exact position, or whether there were men around it.
Rick"s heart beat faster, and his breathing speeded up appreciably. In spite of Zircon"s plan to claim they were only checking on the frogmen"s interest in the wreck, Rick knew that being discovered would mean serious trouble. He recalled Steve"s warning that they were up against a ruthless enemy.
The question was, how close could they get without being seen? He could take pictures at ten feet, but at any greater distance the camera would be useless.
Zircon moved ahead, going slowly now. Rick followed, not bothering with the dark-light unit because the glow in the water was enough for a beacon. Then the glow faded for a moment as a figure crossed in front of it. Still Zircon moved ahead until Rick could see two additional, smaller glows that he identified as the belt lights the frogmen had been wearing.
Zircon continued on, still hugging the bottom, and Rick divined his intention. The big scientist was going to take them directly under the frogmen! It was logical, since the frogmen would not expect danger below.
Rick followed, staying just behind Zircon"s flippers, feeling the wash of water from his wake. The light was nearly overhead now, and Rick saw dark figures moving. It was unreal, like a Hollywood motion picture, except that the tense music of a movie production was replaced only by the soft sighing of their regulators.
And with the thought, Rick almost lost his mouthpiece. Their bubbles!
Their bubbles would rise right past the frogmen, a dead giveaway! It might already be too late, because Zircon was almost directly under the cave!
CHAPTER XII
Clouds Over Clipper Cay
Rick jerked frantically on the tie rope, four times for danger, then he turned and swam rapidly back the way they had come. At first he felt resistance on the line, then Zircon hurried to catch up. Not until they were barely within seeing distance of the light did Rick stop, then he took his belt slate, started the camera for light, and wrote "Bubbles go by thm if we undr. They see."
Zircon held a hand to his head in a sign of chagrin that he had forgotten, then he wrote, "Hw we gt clos?"
Rick pondered the problem. The bubbles had alarmed him in another way, too. It was possible that the man on the boat could see four sets of bubbles rising where only two were supposed to be. Yet, he couldn"t escape the feeling that it was important to get a look at what the frogmen were doing. There was no way out of it. He just had to take a chance.
He wrote, "I mak pa.s.s hldng brth so no bbls, tak pix. U sty out of rnge & cvr me wth gn."
Rick had just one hope of getting away with it. He had to a.s.sume that the frogmen would be busy with whatever they were doing in the cave. If so, their backs would be to the open sea. At least the chance was worth taking.
Zircon wrote, "OK bt be crfl."
Rick didn"t need the warning. Together, they swam back until they were close to the glow of the lights. He hoped that the darkness and breaking surf above were concealing their bubbles. Finally Zircon halted. Rick unsnapped the line that held him to the scientist, squeezed Zircon"s shoulder, and swam away from the reef toward the open water. He kept his head turned so he could keep the light in his field of vision.
When he was out far enough he swam upward until he was on a level with the light, and directly out to sea from it. He inhaled, filling his lungs, then with camera outthrust, he drove directly toward the light.
It wasn"t hard to hold his breath--not with his heart acting as a stopper in his throat.
The light grew clearer. He started the camera and kept moving with powerful strokes. Then he held his legs still and let inertia carry him in a silent glide. He had to get close--close!
The light grew in intensity, and details grew clearer. He saw the frogmen, and their backs were to him! Between them, he caught a glimpse of something bra.s.sy and round, and he saw the octopus, clinging to the reef to one side of the cave.
He held the camera b.u.t.ton as long as he dared. Then when it seemed that he would glide right into the frogmen, he twisted sideways and bent backward like a circus acrobat, flippers moving in powerful thrusts. It was an excellent underwater imitation of a wingover, the plane maneuver that reversed direction by diving and turning. He planed downward until he touched bottom, then thrust himself with frantic kicks away from the vicinity of the cave.
His lungs were about to burst, he felt, when finally he drew a deep breath. The gurgling sigh of his bubbles was sheer relief. He kept moving until he b.u.mped headlong into Hobart Zircon. The scientist reached out and snapped his rope onto Rick"s belt, then tugged twice.
Zircon led the way along the reef bottom until they reached the spot where, they estimated, Tony and Scotty would be waiting. As they started for the surface, Rick switched on the camera and looked at his watch.
They had been under only ten minutes! And he had been waiting for the warning constriction of air running out!
Zircon broke water and instantly submerged again. He led the way a few feet under the surface to where he had seen Tony and Scotty, then led Rick to the top once more.
Tony and Scotty saw them emerge and without a word turned and started back toward the cottage, pushing their floats. Instead of bothering with the snorkel, Rick kept the aqualung mouthpiece in place and swam a few feet under the surface, guiding himself by the wake of the others. He was tired--and relieved.
The group crossed over the reef and swam to the beach in front of the cottage. There they gathered at the water"s edge and stripped off their gear. For long moments no one spoke, then Zircon asked, "See anything, Rick?"
"A little. Enough to get an answer, I think. We haven"t discovered a new breed of octopus, because they were installing something in the cave.
Something that makes a noise."
"Do you know that, or do you infer it?" Tony asked.
"I didn"t hear the noise, if that"s what you mean. But what else could it be?"
"Too bad," Scotty said. "Now we won"t have a new species named after us.
Come on, give us the word. How was it?"
Rick said, with complete truth, "I was scared to death."
"And so was I," Zircon admitted. "At first the sensation of complete blackness caused an emotional reaction. Then I began to see that we had done a rather foolish thing. And I almost got us into trouble by forgetting that we send up a constant stream of bubbles." He told them of his plan to get under the cave, and of Rick"s warning.
"We thought of your bubbles," Scotty told them. "I talked it over with Tony, and came within an ace of diving after you, although I doubt that I could have reached bottom and found you. But we watched, and we couldn"t see any bubbles at all. It was too dark, and we were right where the water was breaking."
"My question is, did you get a picture?" Zircon wanted to know.
"I"m sure I did. The camera was going, and it probably saw much more than I did--since cameras don"t get scared. But it won"t do us much good right now. We can"t develop the film."
The boys picked up the equipment and carried it to the _Water Witch_.
Rick turned off the compressor. He was too tired to wait until all tanks were full. Time enough for that in the morning.
When he and Scotty returned to the cottage, Tony greeted them with cups of hot chocolate and they sat on the porch and enjoyed them.
"Let"s sum up what we know," Zircon invited. "If anyone agrees that we know anything worth summing."
"I think we do," Rick said, "and I think we ought to get it to Steve Ames. We don"t know what he"s after, or what kind of gang he"s fighting, but we know one of them is here."
"Yes, and we also know that Steve"s agency is primarily concerned with protecting military secrets," Zircon added. "I agree with Rick. We must get word of these mysterious frogmen to him."
"We discussed that earlier," Tony recalled. "In view of our discussion, it would seem that either Rick or Scotty or both must fly to Charlotte Amalie and tell him personally."
Scotty pointed at the sky. "Have any of you looked up there?"
All of them did. The moon was just rising, and there was enough light to see heavy cirrus moving high overhead.
"There"s a front of some kind moving down on us," Scotty said. "And did you notice the swells tonight? Long ones. I"m no first-cla.s.s weather forecaster, but all the signs are there. We"re in for a storm. The question is, how soon will it arrive?"
"He"s right," Zircon agreed. "I"m glad you"re observant, Scotty.
Frankly, I hadn"t even bothered looking at the weather. I suppose I thought it would just continue to be perfect."