THE OVERTURNED BOAT.

Matt knew why the original orders given him by Captain Nemo, Jr., carried the Grampus around the Horn. For a vessel that depended on anything but sails for motive power rounding the Horn was no difficult matter. In those southern waters bad weather prevails, but it was possible for the submarine to dive downward and escape the gales and the rough seas. Magellan Strait, on the other hand, was difficult of navigation. Captain Nemo, Jr., had specified a course around the Horn in order to expose the Grampus to as little hazard as might be. He had not known, of course, that Matt and his friends were to be beset by such relentless foes as the Sons of the Rising Sun. Matt preferred to risk the difficult passage of the strait rather than to take chances rounding the southern tip of the continent.

It would have been possible for him, of course, so to word his wireless message as to carry the mysterious steamer through the strait, leaving the Grampus free to take the course originally laid down for her. But that would have given the steamer the shortest course to the Pacific, and she could have been waiting in Smyth Channel, at the western end of the strait, when the submarine came picking her way among the islands. On the whole, it seemed to Matt better that he should send the mysterious steamer around the Horn, and so get ahead of her for the run up the Chilian coast.

The barometer had been falling rapidly all afternoon, and Matt was in a hurry to round Cape Virgins and find anchorage in Possession Bay, there to submerge to a good depth, avoid the storm, and pass the night. While in the strait they would have to do their navigating by daylight, and either sink to the bottom or tie up during the hours of darkness.

While the Grampus was still at the surface, Matt pushed through the hatch to get a look at the sky. Off to the south the heavens were black as the inside of a tar barrel, and through the heavy gloom ran vivid lines of lightning. The wind was high and constantly increasing, so that the waves were lashed furiously. But the rollers were long, and when the submarine crossed one high wave, she slid down the watery hill like a toboggan, ramming her sharp nose into the next comber, and flinging the scud high over the conning tower.

Our friends aboard the craft were hurled about at every angle, and it was necessary for those who had to remain at their posts to lash themselves securely in order to avoid being thrown against the machinery, or the steel plates of side or bulkhead.

Matt closed and secured the hatch, after which he slid down the ladder. Speake, tied to rings in the forward bulkhead of the periscope room, was watching the periscope and doing the steering. The floor underneath seemed to tumble around like the back of a rearing horse.

"We're getting it good an' proper, Matt," said Speake. "For exercise in ground an' lofty tumblin', a submarine in a seaway takes the banner."

"We'll submerge," said Matt, "but I'm in hopes we can get around Cape Virgins and into Possession Bay before the worst of it hits us."

He turned to the tank-room speaking tube.

"A ten-foot submergence, Clackett!" he called.

The pounding of waves against the hull caused a dull roaring throughout the boat, almost deadening the "ay, ay" that came from Clackett.

Presently, as the ballast tanks slowly filled, the Grampus sank until only five feet of the periscope mast was out of water. The motion of the boat was perceptibly easier, but steering by periscope was difficult. Huge waves flung themselves at the ball that capped the mast and thus sponged out the view that should have been reflected on the mirror. Only at intervals could a view above the surface be obtained.

Matt called Dick and had him lash himself at the periscope table, thus leaving Speake free to attend to the wheel.

"Keelhaul me!" muttered Dick. "It's as black as your hat all around us. And lightning! I'm a Fiji if I ever saw it so sharp."

"Can you raise Cape Virgins?" queried Matt.

"I can see something off to starboard that looks as though it might be the cape."

"Well, after we once get around that we'll be in quieter waters and will submerge for the night. Keep your eyes peeled, Dick. This would be a bad time to collide with some steamer just leaving the strait."

Matt, braced on the locker, fell to examining the chart again. While he was at it, a yell of amazement and consternation came from Dick.

The shout lifted Matt off the locker.

"What's the matter?" he asked, ranging alongside his chum.

"An overturned boat," gasped Dick. "I saw it in a trough of the waves just as the periscope cleared—and there were men lashed to the bottom!"

"Positive of that?" returned Matt, fixing his eyes on the mirror.

"Watch, matey, and mayhap you'll see them for yourself."

Just then the periscope ball shook itself free of the waves, and the tumbling sea lay under Matt's eyes. As the darkness was lighted by a glare of lightning, the young motorist was thrilled by the vivid glimpse thus given him of the overturned boat. It was about a hundred feet away on the starboard side, and, at that moment, was being hurled high on the top of a comber. There were five dripping forms on the boat's bottom—Matt saw that much before another wave drenched the periscope ball.

Whirling away, he turned to the motor-room tube.

"Is Glennie or Carl down there?" he shouted.

"Glennie's helping me," answered Gaines, "and Carl's with Clackett."

"Send 'em both up here on the jump."

"What're you going to try to do?" demanded Speake, as Matt began throwing coils of light, strong rope out of the locker.

"There are five men on that overturned boat," was the determined answer, "and we're going to save them."

"It's as much as your life is worth, Matt," returned Speake earnestly, "to bring the Grampus to the surface and venture out on deck."

Matt had thrown off his coat and hat and was now taking off his shoes.

"It's our duty to do what we can," said he. "We can't leave those five men to be washed into the sea and drowned."

"No more we can't," seconded Dick, likewise beginning to peel off his extra clothing. "Watch your old periscope yourself, Speake. I wouldn't give tuppence for those fellows' chances if we don't snatch 'em off."

At that moment Carl and Glennie came rolling into the periscope room. It took Matt only half a minute to tell them of the work that lay ahead.

"Hoop-a-la!" shouted Carl, beginning to strip, "dot means me!"

"And me, too," averred Glennie, likewise preparing himself.

"Dick and I will tie ropes around us and go on the deck," said Matt. "Glennie will stand in the tower and do the steering. Dick and I will each carry the spare ends of a couple of ropes with us, and the coils will be left down here in the periscope room. As soon as one of the men makes fast to a rope, Carl and Speake will tail onto it and haul him aboard."

Matt turned to the tank-room tube.

"Empty the ballast tanks, Clackett!" he shouted.

Clackett must have thought that a strange order, but he was there to obey, and the tone of Matt's voice told him clearly that instant compliance was wanted.

The splash of the turbines could be heard, and the Grampus began rising into rougher water.

"I'll go out first," said Matt, stepping to the ladder. "You follow me, Dick, and, Glennie, you come last."

Matt lingered a moment to pick up an iron wrench and secure it to the end of one of the ropes that was going aloft with him, and then made his way up the ladder.

By then the Grampus was rolling and pitching on the surface, and when Matt opened the hatch, a wave swept over his head, nearly smothering him and hurling him fiercely against the inner wall of the tower.

It looked like suicide to venture out into the waves that hurled themselves over the rounded deck of the submarine, but he watched his chances, got over the edge of the tower and crawled to the steel periscope mast. Just as he reached it, another wave flung itself over the boat. Had his arms not been around the mast, he would have been plucked bodily from the deck and swept into the sea.

As soon as the wave had passed, he tied his life line to the stout steel upright, and stood erect. Just then the submarine was riding a wave, and he saw the overturned boat to the north and on the port side—twice as far away as when he had first seen her through the periscope.

Dick was on the other side of the tower, lashing himself to the flagstaff, and Glennie was out of the hatch to the waist line.

Talking, at such a time, was impossible. Matt pointed in the direction of the overturned boat, and the faint tinkle of the motor-room bell below was heard as Glennie signaled for a turn on the port tack.

As the Grampus came around, she was rolled like a barrel, Matt, Glennie, and Dick, all three, being entirely submerged. But the stout craft was nothing more than a big air chamber, and so long as her plates held together she was practically unsinkable.

Righting herself, the submarine brought the three boys up out of the whirling maelstrom of water.

Matt looked behind. Glennie, dauntless and determined, still reared above the hatch, peering ahead and directing the course; and Dick, farther aft, was hauling at one of his spare lines, coiling it in his hand and making ready to cast as soon as the Grampus came close enough to the overturned boat.