Part 20 (2/2)
A HIGH-SEA MYSTERY
Splas.h.!.+ Without a word as to his intentions Hal Hastings went overboard.
His head showed above the waves almost immediately, as he swam toward that other craft of mystery.
Jack Benson did not immediately reappear. When he did come up, it was under the over turned hull. He was obliged to make a half-dive in order to come out and up in the open.
By the time he did appear, his chum was close to him.
”Hurt?” hailed Hal.
”Not a bit,” responded Jack, after blowing out a mouthful of water.
”Then climb aboard with me, and see what these prize lunatics mean by their behavior,” requested Hal, not caring who heard him.
The sulky young man made no effort to oppose their boarding the hull.
Probably he feared to make too plain an opposition, with that dark-hulled, sombre, ugly-looking submarine torpedo boat lying so close at hand.
”Now, heave us a line, Eph!” hailed Hal. The line came, and was caught.
Hal slipped over the further side with it, vanis.h.i.+ng under water long enough to make it fast to one of the submerged cleats of the sloop's rail.
”That will hold,” he reported, clambering back on to the bottom of the sloop. ”Now, sir,” turning to the older man, ”since you have a life preserver on, you can easily get over to the submarine boat by holding to the line and pulling yourself along.”
”I'm afraid I can't get across and keep my satchel,” whined the older man, nervously.
”I'll take that and swim over with it,” proposed Hal, briskly, reaching out his hand for the bag.
”Oh, no, no!” protested the man. ”I'd sooner stay here. The satchel doesn't go out of my hands.”
”Better take to the water, father, and do the best you can,” advised the younger man in a growl. ”These fellows belong to the United States Navy, and they're determined to rescue us. Trust yourself to the water, and I'll keep along with you. These people will take us by force if we refuse any further.”
If mistaking the crew of the ”Pollard” for members of the United States Navy would make matters move any more quickly, there was no need to disabuse the mind of either of these queer men. But Jack and Hal gave each other a queer, amused look.
The old man took to the water, without difficulty. Buoyed up by his life preserver, he was able to hold to his satchel with one hand, pulling himself along the slightly sagging rope with the other. His son swam along lazily beside him, Eph, outside the rail, but holding to it with one hand, employed his other in helping the father and son up to the deck. When this had been accomplished, Hal threw off the line, after which he and Jack swam back. Eph drew them up to the platform deck.
”Go down below, and hear their account of themselves, if you want to,”
said David Pollard, leaning against the wheel. ”For myself, I'm sick of that pair already.”
Jack and Hal had quite enough boyish curiosity to go below. Eph soon followed. The father, dripping wet and still clutching his satchel with one hand, sat on one of the long seats of the cabin, while the son, scowling, paced back and forth.
”It seems to me that I know you,” Farnum was saying, to the elder man.
”I--I am very sure you don't,” replied the one addressed, uneasily.
”Don't you know who I am?” pursued the boat-builder.
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