The Boy Aviators on Secret Service; Or, Working with Wireless

“But what can have happened to her?” exclaimed the lieutenant as the first vague blot of the ship resolved through his glasses into definite lines, “here, take a look, Bagsby.”

He handed the glasses to his subordinate, who laid them aside in a few minutes with the exclamation.

“Why, she’s as black as a coal, sir!”

“What’s that dangling at her stern, Bagsby?” asked Lieutenant Selby the next minute.

“Why, it looks like an American flag, sir,” responded the ensign, “but it’s almost as black as the rest of her and – just look at that, sir – the men in her all black, too!”

Hardly able to control his excitement the lieutenant took the glasses from his subordinate, though by this time the air-vessel was so close that the five persons aboard her were visible to the naked eye. They were waving furiously and shouting at the tops of their voices, though these sounded, to tell the truth, a bit feeble.

“Tarantula, ahoy!” came a hail from the aeroplane, as she swung in a graceful circle about the destroyer.

“Ahoy there,” hailed the lieutenant through a megaphone, “who are you?”

“The Golden Eagle II, Captain Frank Chester,” came back from the aeroplane as she swung by, “with Lieutenant Bob Chapin, aboard.”

The cheer that went up then roused the herons that were just settling down to bed and sent them and a hundred other varieties of Everglade birds swirling in wild affright up around the tree-tops. As for Selby he clapped Bagsby on the back till the young ensign sustained a violent fit of coughing.

“It’s Chapin and he’s safe; hurray!” he shouted. “Those boys have done the trick!”

“Send a boat ashore for us,” shouted the leader of the adventurers from the smoke-blackened ’plane, as she swung by once more, “we’ve got a lot to tell you.”

“I should think so,” commented the lieutenant to himself, as he ordered a boat lowered and seated himself in the stern sheets. While this was being done the boys had landed on a long sandy bar, which made an ideal grounding place. It didn’t take long, you may be sure, to get them into the boat and row them aboard the Tarantula where, after soap and towel had removed their sooty disguise, they made a meal that tasted to them infinitely more delicious than any of the more elaborate repasts any of them had ever eaten in New York. As for Lieutenant Chapin, to be once more aboard one of Uncle Sam’s ships and in the hands of friends, affected him to such a degree that after dinner he begged to be excused and paced in solitude up and down the deck for an hour or more, while Frank told and retold the story of their adventures.

While the lieutenant was gratefully recalling the boys’ exploit, he was awakened from his reverie by the splash of a paddle and looking up saw a canoe drawing near in which were seated three people. It was too dark of course for him to make out more than the outlines of their figures.

“Boat ahoy! What boat’s that?” hailed the lookout sharply.

“Well, we ain’t got no name but an Injun one and I disremember that,” came back the reply, “but tell me have you got two young chaps, named Chester, aboard?”

“Who is that?” hailed the lieutenant.

“My name’s Ben Stubbs. Who the dickens are you?” was the bluff reply.

“Lieutenant Chapin,” was the calm reply.

The result was astonishing.

“Well, I’ll be double horn-swoggled,” shouted the same bluff voice that had framed the question and the next minute there was a splash and loud sputtering sounds of indignation.

“Man overboard!” cried the Tarantula’s lookout.

“You black landlubbers! Upsetting me overboard and trying to drown me, eh? Ef I had you at a rope’s end I’d make you walk fancy,” came over the water in tones running the gamut of indignation.

By this time the boys and the others were on deck and as they heard and amazedly recognized the sputtering voice there came from them a delighted hail of:

“Ben Stubbs!”

“Come aboard!”

“Sure I will if this consarned contraption of a canoe we’re in wull hold me an’ my voice, but every time I speak it tips over,” was the indignant reply.

But there were no more accidents and a few seconds later the boys and the dripping Ben were wringing hands and slapping backs till the tears came to the rugged old adventurer’s eyes.

“Keelhaul me if I ain’t glad to see you,” shouted Ben, “and the lootinant, too. I knowed they’d git yer ef they set out to,” roared Ben, “and by the great horn-spoon, they have.”

While this was going on the two other occupants of the boat – who were none other than Quatty and Pork Chops – had clambered on deck and stood shyly by. They, too, came in for their share of greetings and congratulations.

Then Ben, of course, had to relate his adventures with the Seminoles, winding up with the account of how he came to leave the Indian village.

It seemed that a wandering party of Seminoles had come across Quatty, wearily paddling toward the coast from the mound-builders’ island, and as he was almost exhausted had taken him in their canoes and poled him at top speed to the island. Arrived there Quatty was roused to great indignation, as well as surprise when he discovered that Ben was a captive and demanded his immediate release. By virtue of Quatty’s power over the tribesmen, Ben had immediately been set free and he and Quatty canoed to Camp Walrus. Here they found Pork Chops, half crazy from fright and as he would not hear of being left alone any longer they agreed to take him with them to the Tarantula, whither Ben had decided to go as soon as he found the camp deserted. The rest the boys knew.

The relation of Ben’s narrative, and of course that of the boys which had to be retold to the newcomer, consumed so much time that they were all startled when eight bells (midnight) rang out.

The echo had hardly died away when a black form was seen rushing through the water from the mouth of the river.

It was sighted simultaneously by almost all on deck and recognized at once for what it was.

Captain Bellman’s submarine!

CHAPTER XXIX

THE LAST OF BELLMAN’S CREW

“Up anchor, quick!” shouted Lieutenant Selby, springing into the conning tower. The shrill whistle of the bos’un’s pipe sounded at the same moment and in a second the ship that had been so still and inert was a maelstrom of activity. The anchor was broken out and long before it was landed home at the catheads the Tarantula, a long line of white foam streaking aft from each side of her sharp bow, was steering through the water in pursuit of the flying submarine.

Lieutenant Selby’s first action after they were under way had been to order the searchlight played on the chase and kept on her. Fortunately the phosphorescent glow left on the water by the submarine, as she dashed away, made her course as plain as day and the man operating the searchlight had no difficulty in finding her.

As the light played about her the watchers on the Tarantula, made out two forms standing on her railed-in back.

“Bellman!” exclaimed Frank as his eyes fell on the taller of the two.

“Foyashi, the scoundrel,” was Lieutenant Chapin’s recognition of the shorter one.

“We’ll get ’em if we blow the Tarantula up,” exclaimed Lieutenant Selby tensely, as he shouted down to the engineer, “more steam, Mac.”

The pace was terrific, moreover it was dangerous navigation, but everyone aboard well knew that they would have to catch the submarine before she got out of the waters where she did not dare to dive, and there was not a man aboard that was not willing, in the heat of the chase, to take the chance of running aground.

Lieutenant Selby himself had taken the wheel from the man who had held it when the chase began and like greyhound and hare the destroyer and the submarine raced along.

“Try them with the bow gun,” suggested Lieutenant Chapin to his associate.

“A good idea, old man,” was the reply, and old Bob Adams, a seamy-faced veteran, was called aft and promised unlimited tobacco and spending money if he could hit the submarine and “wing” her. Old Adams was a man of few words and didn’t change his usual habit of silence, as the gun was made ready for him. It was a Hotchkiss rapid-fire capable of piercing steel-armor at half-a-mile and the submarine’s broad glistening back offered a good mark.

“Are you ready, Adams?” asked the lieutenant, as after a lot of squinting and adjustment the old man stood with the firing cord in his hand.

“Bin ready, tew minuts,” was the reply.

“Go ahead then.”

The Hotchkiss spat viciously, but the water spurted up a good ten feet of the mark.

The shot had missed.

Old Adams didn’t change a muscle of his face, though he knew every eye on ship but that of the helmsman was on him. He spat over the side, ruminatively, and then pointed the gun, once more.

By this time Bellman and his companion had seen there was mischief behind and had ducked through the slide of their craft and screwed it down. The lieutenant rightly interpreted this as a signal that in a few minutes the submarine would dive. If once she did so the chances against their getting her again would be remote in the extreme.

“Get her this time, Adams,” he beseeched.

“I’ll do my best, sir;” said the old salt as the gun cracked once more.

This time a cheer went up. The submarine had been hit.

“Again! Let her have it!” yelled Lieutenant Selby, carried away by excitement.

Again and again the Hotchkiss viciously cracked and spat fire and every time brought the Tarantula nearer to the crippled diver. It was evident that the submarine could not last much longer. Already her speed was a mere crawl. One of Adams’ projectiles must have penetrated to her engine-room or else, – as was more likely, – her crew had mutinied.

Suddenly the slide on her back opened and through it poured a crowd of the little brown men who had been employed at Bellman’s Island. They cried, they screamed appeals of aid to the pursuing ship, which had of course ceased firing as human figures appeared.

“They want us to take ’em aboard, sir,” said old Adams, who had served in the far East and understood their appeals. “They say they are sinking and that their engineer is killed.”

“Lower the boats,” ordered Selby, “we’ll get them off. I won’t see men drown if I can help it.”

A coatless man suddenly appeared among the searchlight illumined crowd on the back of the submarine. It was Bellman. By his side was Foyashi, also coatless and desperate.

“Back, you yellow dogs. Get back below!” yelled Bellman, flourishing a revolver.

A beseeching cry went up.

“We’ll go to the bottom together,” shouted Bellman, apparently beside himself. The next instant his revolver cracked and two of the little brown men fell across the steel plates. What happened then was like a nightmare to the boys who stood watching in horrified amazement. The whole swarming crowd of panic-stricken men seized Bellman and Foyashi and paying no attention to their despairing cries hurled them overboard.

In vain the wretches tried to clasp the sides of the wounded submarine and haul themselves back on deck. They were knocked off each time by their crazed followers. Before the boats from the Tarantula could reach them they both had disappeared. In the submarine’s engine-room Job Scudder, too, lay dead – killed beside his engines at Adams’ first successful shot.

The Tarantula anchored there for the night and the boats rowed about seeking for the lost men but their bodies did not reappear and doubtless the swift current swept them out to sea. Early the next day the boys and the officers rowed over to the submarine, whose crew was now installed on board the Tarantula and searched her thoroughly. She had settled in shallow water and access to her was easy through the top plate.

Their diligence was rewarded by the discovery in a steel bound chest, that evidently had belonged to Bellman, of the long missing formula of Chapinite. They found, too, unmistakable proofs that the government which the authorities had suspected all along had really been the man’s employer. How he drifted into their service, was, of course, only surmise. The submarine was laden with four gross of straw-wrapped boxes containing enough of the explosive to have blown up the navies of the world, if mixed with the right quantity of gunpowder. At Lieutenant Selby’s suggestion the boxes were weighted and sunk to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico the next day where they still lie. It was too dangerous a cargo to carry in the form the daring Bellman had packed it.

As for Pork Chops and Quatty, before the Tarantula sailed their hearts were made glad by presents of rifles, revolvers and ammunition and permission to take possession of the canoes and all the duffle the boys had left at Camp Walrus. Pork Chops had been so fascinated by Quatty’s tales of life among the Seminoles that he had decided to cast in his lot with him and, on condition that Quatty gave him a proper introduction to the tribe, to go shares on the Carrier Dove with him after they fetched her from her anchorage.

Ben Stubbs and the boys, in the Tarantula’s launch, early the next day went back to the sand-spit where the Golden Eagle II had been beached and dismantled her, as soon as the inspection of the submarine was completed. Packed in sections she was placed aboard the destroyer together with the field wireless which was fetched from Camp Walrus, by Lathrop and the negroes.

That evening just as the group of herons, to which the boys had grown so accustomed, were circling above their roosting-places, the Tarantula with a long blast of her siren, swung out of the channel into the shimmering gold of the Gulf. Behind them lay the black outlines of the half-submerged submarine. Forward on deck, squatted the little brown men who were to be set ashore at the first convenient port, as they all had plenty of money to get back to their own country.

The Tarantula’s destination was Hampton Roads, from where the boys and Lieutenant Chapin were to hurry to Washington and relate the whole story. As for Billy Barnes, he was already busy writing out what he called “The biggest beat of the ages, the recovery of Lieutenant Chapin and the Loss of the Mysterious Submarine.”

“It’s good for a whole front page,” he declared, “with pictures of all of us and ‘by William Barnes,’ at the top.”

“What are you thinking of, Frank, old boy?” asked Harry as the destroyer plunged steadily forward through the night, – homeward bound.

Frank laughed, although his thoughts had been grave.

“That we have earned a holiday,” he said, “let’s go on a hunting trip, some place.”

“Where?” inquired Harry.

“Oh, anywhere – what’s the matter with Africa?”

“Great! hunting by aeroplane!” exclaimed Harry, “and we’ll take the bunch along. Hurray! for the BOY AVIATORS IN AFRICA; or, ON AN AERIAL IVORY TRAIL.”

THE END