CHAPTER XXVII. THE ENDURANCE RUN.

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The ensuing days, following the return to the island, were filled to overflowing with activity. Exhaustive tests only made the Peacemaker appear to be more and more the ideal type of boat for her particular work. By means of the island wireless Ensign Hargreaves, using "code" of course, sent glowing accounts to Washington of the progress of the tests. In these despatches, too, the Boy Scouts were favorably mentioned for their pluck and heroism in the pursuit of Berghoff and his rascally companions.

One day, about two weeks after the return to the island, it was determined by the ensign and Mr. Barr to make quite a run out to sea to test to the full the endurance capacity of the Peacemaker. Rob and Merritt were chosen to accompany them. The rest of the boys were left to guard the island, which, among other valuable property, now housed the precious ivory hoard recovered in such a strange manner.

The day dawned with a red, angry sky proclaiming nasty weather. But this, instead of dampening the ardor of the inventor and his aides, only increased it. It meant that the submarine was in for a real test in a bad sea.

By the time they were ready to start, the wind had freshened into half a gale and a high sea was running, heaping up big gray combers with white tops which broke angrily.

Into this storm the Peacemaker was headed without hesitation. On board were the ensign, the inventor, Rob and Merritt. The two latter were to serve watch and watch in the engine room, while the inventor and the ensign placed themselves under a similar arrangement in the conning tower.

Both Rob and Merritt were by this time fully conversant with the running of the Peacemaker's intricate machinery and were trusted to the full by their superior officers.

"Gee! This feels like being afloat in an empty bottle!" exclaimed Merritt as the Peacemaker headed into the tumbling seas.

"It sure does," responded Rob, hanging on to a handhold while he oiled a bearing. "I suppose they want to see how much she'll stand on the surface."

"Wonder they wouldn't dive and give us a chance to get a little quiet," observed Merritt as the rolling, bucking Peacemaker leaped, as it seemed, skyward and then plunged dizzily down again.

"There must be a hummer of a sea outside. Guess, as I'm off duty, I'll go up and see what's doing," said Rob presently.

He made his way with much difficulty toward the steel ladder leading into the conning tower. The passage could only be made by fits and starts, and the boy for the first time realized the necessity of the handholds placed at frequent intervals on the cabin walls, to which reference has already been made.

Reaching the ladder he scrambled up into the conning tower, and, once inside, braced himself against the wild and erratic motions of the Peacemaker. To see through the lenses was impossible. The seas that swept over the little craft blurred the glass with green water and obscured everything outside. But on the Peacemaker this condition did not matter. The contingency had been provided for.

The long arm of the periscope with its "eye" on top had been raised, and it reached far above the biggest combers. In front of the helmsman, who happened to be Mr. Barr, was a big plate of ground glass on which every object outside was plainly shown, although of course in miniature. Those of my readers who have ever seen a "camera obscura" will recognize what I mean.

Upon the ground glass, as within a picture frame, was reproduced the motion of the furious seas, the scurrying clouds and the angry storm wrack. It was an inspiring marine painting, with the motion and sweep that an actual painting could never possess. It thrilled Rob as he gazed at it and realized that it was through this pandemonium of the storm that the Peacemaker was bravely fighting her way.

"Better slow down a bit, hadn't I?" asked Mr. Barr as the Peacemaker, urged by her powerful engines, ploughed right through a mountainous sea.

As she bored her way through the mighty wall of green water, a roar like that of a railroad train resounded and the craft pitched as if she were going to plunge to the bottom of the sea. This latter, in fact, Rob rather wished she would do. He knew that in the depths all would be quiet and undisturbed.

In reply to Mr. Barr's question, the ensign nodded.

"The strain is already pretty strong," he said; "we don't want to force her too hard."

Accordingly the inventor, utilizing the auto control device, cut down the speed till, instead of ploughing through the waves, the Peacemaker skimmed over them. Unlike most submarines, which cannot do otherwise than plunge into heavy seas, the Peacemaker's hull was so constructed that she rode the waves like a duck.

After a while the sensation of heaving and falling began to get upon Mr. Barr's nerves.

"I'm feeling a bit squeamish," he declared; "let's dive and get out of this."

The ensign nodded and laughed.

"Our friend Rob here is getting a bit pale, too," he said; "and as we don't want a sea-sick crew, maybe we had better seek the seclusion of Davy Jones' locker."

An instant later the Peacemaker was plunging downward. At a depth of twenty feet the angry motion of the waves was unfelt. In those dim depths all was as quiet and undisturbed as if the elements were at perfect peace above.

Down, down dropped the submarine till her depth indicator showed that she was submerged five hundred fathoms.

"The chart gives seven hundred hereabouts," commented Ensign Hargreaves, glancing at it; "so I guess we are safe for forty miles more before the floor of the ocean slopes upward. We must go up a bit higher then."

The inventor nodded.

"I understand," he said, and then, "we are now running at what speed?"

The ensign turned to the speed indicator.

"A trifle under twenty miles an hour," he said.

Mr. Barr glanced at the clock before him, which was illuminated by a tiny shaded electric bulb.

"I'll keep on this course at this speed for about two hours then," he determined.

"That will be all right, I imagine," was the rejoinder, "but don't keep on too long. The bed of the sea, according to the chart, rises up very rapidly further on. It must be almost cliff-like in its sudden elevation."

"I'll be on the lookout," the inventor assured him.

Rob descended the ladder once more and reËntered the engine room to find out how Merritt was getting along. He found the young engineer seated on the leather lounge alongside the engines watching them lovingly.

"Work smoothly, don't they?" he said.

"They sure do," was the other's response; "smoothly as a Geneva watch."

The boys sat chatting on various matters, and the time flew along rapidly till Rob suddenly looked at his watch.

"Almost two hours. It's time we were rising," he said.

"What do we want to rise for? It's deep enough here, isn't it?"

"That's just it. The ensign says that the chart shows that a sort of submarine cliff looms up right ahead of us somewhere hereabouts."

"Great ginger snaps! I thought the bottom of the sea was as level as a floor."

"Not a bit of it. It's as full of mountainous regions and flat, depressed plains and valleys as the Rockies themselves."

"Gee whiz! I'd hate to hit one of them. I——"

Merritt stopped short. A terrific crash shook the submarine from stem to stern. Rob saved himself from falling into the machinery by seizing a rail.

For an instant the vibration lasted, and then the diving craft came to a dead stop.

The boys gazed at each other with blanched faces.

Did the crash mean that they had actually struck one of the submerged ranges that make deep sea traveling full of dangers? Had Mr. Barr delayed too long in rising?

On the answer to these questions both boys felt that their lives depended.

They were still regarding each other with consternation when the ensign burst into the cabin.

"Shut off the engines instantly!" he ordered.

"What have we struck? That submerged cliff that you feared?" Rob managed to gasp out, while Merritt hastened to obey the officer's command.

"I—I don't know," was the reply, "but I fear that we are in serious danger!"


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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