TURNING THE TABLES.

How Carl had managed to release himself Matt did not know, and he was too busy, just then, to spare time to ask. The leader of the Chilians, leaning out into the narrow passage, lifted the revolver with the intention of firing it at Carl. The position of the fighters did not give the man the chance he wanted—but it did give Matt an opportunity of which he was not slow to take advantage.

While the face of the Chilian was turned, the young motorist leaped at him and clasped him about the neck with his arms. There was no head room in the passage between the engine room and the tank room. In order to get through it a person had to go down on his hands and knees and creep.

Matt caught the leader of the Chilians just where a step downward led from the passage into the engine room—the farthest point aft in the boat.

The swarthy rascal gave vent to a yell, shouting something to the two men above. As Matt pulled him backward and downward, Dick rushed forward and lent his aid.

"Fine-o!" panted Dick, gripping the hand that held the revolver and wrenching the weapon away. "We're turning the tables quicker than I ever thought we'd be able to do. It's a main lucky thing Carl was left in the torpedo room. Quiet, you treacherous swab!" Dick added to the fiercely battling Chilian. "Stop your fighting or I'll put a bullet into you."

"Give me the revolver, Dick," said Matt, "and I'll take care of him. You go and lend Carl a hand."

Carl was having a hard time of it. The Chilian was not large, but hard labor in the penal settlement of Punta Arenas had developed his muscles.

Carl, at the bottom of the hatchway leading up to the periscope room, was doing his utmost to bear the Chilian down in the passage leading to the tank room. He was on the rascal's back, throttling him with his hands, and trying to force him forward.

The man, holding the harpoon point up, was jabbing with it over his shoulder. It was a dangerous instrument, and if Carl had been struck fairly with the lance-like point, he would surely have been badly hurt.

"You t'ought you hat got der pest oof Modor Matt, hey?" Carl was whooping as he continued compressing his fingers about the brown throat and gave no attention to the harpoon. "Vell, you got some more t'oughts coming. I peen Modor Matt's chum, und I vas a rekular horned ven I got my mad oop—a yellow chacket mit some stingers, yah, so! Vy don'd you fall mit yourseluf? Vy don'd——"

Just then the point of the harpoon ran through Carl's hair, raking his scalp.

"Shdop id, oder I vill shdrangle you!" Carl cried.

The Chilian, so to speak, had got the range. He was breathing in choking gasps, but he still had strength enough to stand upright, and he was preparing for a backward thrust with the harpoon, which might have won the day for him had not Dick interfered.

At the critical moment Dick seized the fellow's arm and wrenched it so severely that the harpoon fell clanging to the steel floor. The next instant the boys had the Chilian down.

"Get a rope, Carl!" puffed Dick. "I can hold him while you're doing it. Better get two ropes—one for Matt to use."

Carl darted into the torpedo room, and was soon back with the ropes. They were the same ones that had been used to secure him and Matt.

"Durn aboudt iss fair blay," chuckled Carl. "Der ropes ve use on dem vas de vones dey use on us! Ach, vat a habbiness!"

The man was quickly bound, and Carl and Dick crept on to where Matt was threatening the leader of the treacherous clique with the firearm.

"You and Carl can take care of the fellow, Dick," said Matt. "I'll leave you and go up to the periscope room. There's no telling what's been going on there."

"Slant away, matey," said Dick. "Carl and I can handle this dago, with ground to spare."

"You bed you!" echoed Carl; "ve can take care oof all der tagos on der poat."

Matt waited for no more, but crawled back to the ladder and hurried to the periscope chamber. What he saw from the door alarmed him. Glennie was lying on the floor, and the two other Chilians were nowhere to be seen.

"Glennie!" shouted Matt, rushing forward.

Glennie lifted himself on one elbow and gave the young motorist a bewildered look; then abruptly his brain cleared and he realized what had taken place.

"All right, Matt," said he. "As soon as that row was turned on below I was knocked over. CÆsar, what a thump I got!" Glennie sat up and lifted both hands to the back of his head. "What's going on?" he asked.

"We've captured the two villains who were below with us," Matt answered. "What has become of the other two?"

"Give it up. My wits went woolgathering the minute I dropped."

Matt ran to the door of the steel room and tried it. It was locked.

"Hello, out there!" came the voice of Speake. "What's all the excitement about?"

"We've captured the boat back again," replied Matt.

"Hooray!" exulted Clackett. "Let us out, Matt."

"As soon as I find the key." Matt turned to Glennie. "Who did you say had the key?" he asked.

"One of the two who were here with me," said Glennie. "They must have gone up on deck."

Matt sprang to the iron ladder and mounted swiftly to the hatch. The hatch was open and the morning sun was streaming down. The moment he got his head through the opening, he saw a sight that still further increased his alarm.

At least a dozen canoes were in the bay, arranged in a circle at a good safe distance from the Grampus. The boats were constructed of rough planks rudely tied together with the sinews of animals. There were four warriors in each canoe; small, fierce little men wearing cloaks of the sea otter and with faces like those of baboons. The warriors were armed with bows and arrows, and in each canoe the small fighters had their bows in hand with an arrow laid to the string.

Matt recalled what Glennie had said just before Carl made his attack on the Chilian with the harpoon. Evidently this flock of canoes had been in the bay, the warriors intent upon some nefarious expedition, when the Grampus lifted herself to the surface of the water.

This apparition, emerging from the depths of the bay, must have filled the superstitious natives with panic. They had fled, Matt reasoned, but had plucked up heart when the monster had failed to attack them and had drawn closer.

In grim silence the warriors surveyed the youth. They made no attempt to attack, but watched with glittering eyes, their steel-pointed arrows ready.

"That's a layout for you!" came the voice of Glennie from below. He was looking into the periscope, and had as good a view of the canoes and warriors as Matt had himself. "Don't let them get a whack at you, Matt," the ensign cautioned. "They're a treacherous lot of savages, and many a good ship they have coaxed to her doom by lighting fires on shore in stormy weather. It was those false beacons that gave their land the name of Terra del Fuego—the Land of Fire."

"I thought the country was named that because of the habit the natives have of carrying fire with them to keep them warm."

"Some say one thing and some another, but——"

"No use debating that question now. What I'd like to know is where have those other Chilians gone?"

"Can't you see them? They're beyond the canoes in a boat of their own, and pulling ashore."

The periscope ball, being fifteen feet above the deck of the Grampus, afforded Glennie a wider view than Matt had from the top of the tower. Matt climbed higher up the ladder and looked shoreward over the heads of the savages in the canoes.

He saw the two Chilians. They were in one of the rough boats and getting hastily toward the shore of the bay.

"How do you suppose they ever managed to get that canoe and pass through the circle of Fuegans?" asked Glennie. "Why, the savages are not even chasing them!"

"Probably," guessed Matt, "the Fuegans thought the Chilians were visitors from the bottom of the sea, inasmuch as they came out of the boat, and were afraid to molest them. But we're not going to let the scoundrels get away so easy as all that."

Stepping back down the ladder until his fingers could touch the steering device and the bell pushes, Matt rang for full speed ahead.

The jingle of the bell reached the Fuegans, and perhaps gave them the idea that this monster of the deep was making ready to do battle with them. Dropping their bows, they seized their paddles and shot their canoes to a safer distance.

The churning of the propeller still further alarmed the savages, and when the submarine headed shoreward, pointing straight for one segment of the canoe-draw circle, there was a wild scramble among the boats to get out of the way.

The Chilians, looking over their shoulders and seeing the Grampus pursuing them, redoubled their efforts to get away. But they would not have succeeded had not the Fuegans unexpectedly changed their tactics.

Whiz-z-z—zip! An arrow flashed past Matt's head.

"Come down, Matt!" shouted Glennie. "If you don't they'll put one of those arrows through you! It's a wonder that one missed."

Matt needed no second bidding. Emboldened by the attack of the first savage, all the others prepared to launch their shafts.

As Matt dropped into the tower and closed and secured the hatch, a veritable cloud of arrows came pecking at tower and deck, some of them gliding off into space, and some of them splintering and breaking upon the tough steel.

Matt continued to remain in the tower, his eyes at the lunettes and his hand on the steering device.

Any further attempt to chase the escaping Chilians was only a waste of time. Even if the Grampus overhauled them it would have been impossible for those aboard to get out on deck and effect a capture. Their canoe might have been run down and destroyed, but that would merely have thrown the convicts into the water, where they would have been drowned or pierced with the sharp-pointed Fuegan arrows. Rather than have the Chilians slain, Matt chose to let them get ashore and take their chances on dry land.

The Fuegans, however, had no intention of giving up their attack. When Matt vanished below the conning-tower hatch, they divined instantly that he was afraid of their arrows. He could be no god of the ocean's depths if a Fuegan arrow frightened him. Reasoning in this primitive fashion, the savages gave vent to loud cries and urged their canoes toward the submarine from all sides.