Originally published: July 10, 1909
Genres: Adventure, Children's
Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199573454-motor-matt-makes-good-or-another-victory-for-the-motor-boys
Gutenberg link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50080
Chapters: 16
Warning: This may include outdated and derogatory language and attitudes.
CHAPTER I
OFF THE CHILIAN COAST
"Great spark plugs!"
"Strike me lucky!"
"Py shiminy Grismus!"
There were three surprised and excited boys on the rounded deck of the submarine boat Grampus. It was a calm, cloudless night, and the sea was as smooth as a mill pond; but, for all that, the night was cloudless, a dank, clinging fog had rolled down from the Andes and out upon the ocean, blotting out moon and star and rendering their surroundings as black as Erebus.
The Grampus was proceeding slowly northward along the Chilian coast. Motor Matt, Dick Ferral, and Carl Pretzel were on the deck forward, keeping a sharp lookout. The electric projector from the conning tower bored a gleaming hole into the darkness ahead, giving the lads a limited view in that direction. Speake was half in and half out of the conning tower, steering from that position.
The waters gurgled and lapped at the rounded sides of the boat, then floated rearward in long lines of phosphorescence, spreading out in the wake like two sticks of an open fan. At the stern of the submarine, the propeller churned up a glittering froth.
What the boys saw, however, that had aroused their startled exclamations was a cluster of glowing lights a foot or two under the surface of the water. This mysterious glow was moving, at a moderate rate of speed, in a course that crossed that of the Grampus.
"Slow down, Speake!" called Matt to the helmsman.
The jingle of a bell, down in the motor room, was heard faintly, and the submarine's speed fell off perceptibly. The cluster of starlike points bubbled onward, missed the bow of the Grampus by a few feet, and vanished in the gloom on the port side.
"Vat it iss?" murmured Carl, rubbing a hand dazedly across his eyes. "Dere iss lighdning pugs on der land, und I vonder iss dere lighdning pug fishes in der sea? Dot looked schust like a shark mit some searchlights on his headt."
"I'm a Fiji if there was any fish about that," averred the bewildered Dick. "Can you rise to it, matey?" he asked, turning to Matt. "What sort of sizing do you give it?"
The king of the motor boys was puzzled.
"It might be a piece of drift from the shore," he answered, "or the fragment of a wreck."
"Aber it moofed!" exclaimed Carl. "It moofed droo der vater schust like it vas alife!"
"The current may have caused that. There are all kinds of currents in this part of the ocean."
"Und der lights, Matt. Pieces oof wreck don'd haf lights like dot!"
"That was a trick of the phosphorescence. There were probably nails or spikes in the timber, and wherever they projected and caused a ripple there was a glow in the water."
Matt turned to Speake.
"Make a turn to the left, Speake," said he. The submarine swerved slowly to the port tack. "There," said Matt; "hold her so."
Dick gave a low laugh.
"You don't take much stock in that explanation of yours, matey," he remarked, "or you wouldn't be following that bit of supposed flotsam and jetsam."
"I've explained it in the only way I know how, Dick," returned Matt, "but I'm still a good deal in doubt. We'll see if we can overhaul the thing and make a further examination. I don't like to take the time, but it may turn out to be time well spent."
Motor Matt knelt well forward, just where the V-shaped waves parted over the sharp nose of the Grampus, and while he knelt he peered fixedly into the water ahead.
"You're such a cautious chap," spoke up Dick, hanging to one of the flagstaff guys and likewise staring ahead, "that I've been all ahoo wondering why you were doing this night cruising. The night's as black as a pocket, and this coast is about as dangerous as you can find anywhere, and yet here we are, groping our way along, never knowing what minute we may bounce upon a reef or say how do you do to a sharp rock."
"Remember that Pacific Mail boat we spoke yesterday?" inquired Matt, over his shoulder.
"The one that told us they had news, in Santiago, that a Japanese boat had got away from the Chilian, Captain Sandoval, below the Strait of Magellan?" responded Dick.
"Exactly. When we left English Reach, at the western end of the strait, we know Captain Sandoval, of the Chilian warship Salvadore, was pursuing the mysterious Japanese steamer; and we also know that that steamer had on board our enemies, the Sons of the Rising Sun. The mail boat said the news that the steamer had escaped the Salvadore had been flashed by wireless from Punta Arenas and had been repeated by telegraph to Santiago and Valparaiso."
"I don'd pelieve dot Chapanese poat efer got avay from der Salvatore!" declared Carl.
"It may be that she did, Carl," went on Matt, "and we've got to make sure of it just as soon as we possibly can. That's the reason we're traveling through this thick fog, and taking our chances on hitting a reef or sunken rock. We've got to reach Lota and find out for sure if those Japanese are again free to bother us. You know what it means if the Sons of the Rising Sun got away from Sandoval. Those misguided Japanese have sworn that the Grampus shall never be turned over to the United States Government at Mare Island Navy Yard. They're a desperate and fanatical lot, and we've got to know just what we're up against, so far as they are concerned. Lota is on the railroad and telegraph line, and we'll get news there, if anywhere."
"As usual," observed Dick, "that head of yours has been working, old ship, while the rest of us have been wondering what you were trying to do. I don't think you'll catch up with that piece of drift."
"Nor I," Matt answered, getting to his feet and coming aft. "Whatever that was, I suspect we'll never be able to discover, so my guess will have to stand. Put her on the starboard tack, Speake," he added to the man in the conning tower.
The submarine once more resumed her course toward Arauco Bay and Lota.
"You fellows go below and turn in," Matt went on to Dick and Carl. "I can con the ship, all right, and there's no need for the two of you staying awake and helping me on the lookout."
"You'd better let Glennie relieve you, mate," suggested Dick. "You've been on deck duty for six hours."
"I'm going to stay right here," said Matt, "until we get safely into Arauco Bay."
There was no use arguing with Motor Matt when he made up his mind that duty commanded him to do a certain thing, and Dick and Carl wished him luck and went below.
Ensign Glennie was lying on the locker in the periscope room.
"You shifted the course," said he, rising on one elbow and peering at Dick and Carl as they dropped off the iron ladder. "What was up?"
"Somet'ing mit a shiny headt vent past us," replied Carl, dropping down on a stool and beginning to draw off his shoes.
"Something with a shiny head?" queried the nonplused ensign.
"Yah, so. It vas a funny pitzness."
"What was it, Dick?"
"I'm by," answered Dick, shaking his head. "I've seen a good many queer things afloat, but that was the queerest. It was too dark to see much, though. Mayhap if we'd had a little more light, we could have made a closer examination and the mystery would have been explained."
Thereupon he went into details, telling Glennie all that he and Carl knew.
"Can you make anything out of it, Glennie?" Dick finished.
"I'm over my head, like the rest of you," answered the ensign. "Probably Matt hit it off pretty well when he said it was a bit of water-logged drift, floating between two waves, with spikes cutting the water and throwing off gleams of phosphorescence. This part of the Pacific is full of cross-currents. And it's a mighty dangerous stretch of water, too, I'm telling you. Matt is certainly anxious to reach Lota, or he'd never persist in pushing through waters like these in such a fog."
"He's worrying again over those Sons of the Rising Sun."
Dick pulled off one of his shoes and swung it reflectively in his hand.
"I don't think it is possible that that Japanese steamer got away from Sandoval," said Glennie. "The officers on that mail boat must have got it wrong."
"Our old raggie is bound to find out just how much truth there is in the yarn, anyhow," continued Dick. "We're what you might call on the last leg of our cruise, and the little old Grampus has covered the east coast of two continents and is well up the west coast. We have dodged trouble in pretty good shape, so far, and Matt don't intend to let the Sons of the Rising Sun put us down and out at this late stage of the game."
"The Japanese can't put Motor Matt down and out," averred Glennie, with suppressed admiration. "He has met them at every point and has given them the worst of it. They'll never be able to destroy the Grampus. Mark what I say, my lads, Motor Matt is going to 'make good' with ground to spare, and chalk up another victory for the motor boys."
Dick and Carl would have cheered this warm sentiment, but before they had a chance to do so, a wild yell came from Speake.
"Tumble up here, you fellows! Quick, now!"
Speake, as he spoke, crushed himself against the side of the conning tower hatch, in order to make room for those in the periscope room to pass him and reach the deck.
Startled by the words and wildly excited manner of the helmsman, Dick, Carl, and Glennie lost not an instant in rushing up the ladder and dropping over the side of the conning tower.
"Where's Matt?" cried Dick.
"That's just what I want to know," answered Speake, his consternation growing and tremulous awe finding its way into his voice. "He was on the deck a few minutes ago, but he isn't here now. The last I saw of him he went aft, around the conning tower. The next thing I knew, when I turned and looked for him, he wasn't aboard."
All three of the lads were stricken dumb. For a brief space, none of them spoke, but looked toward each other in the gloom, frantically alarmed and vaguely fearing—they knew not what.
"He couldn't have fallen overboard," spoke up Glennie, first to break the silence that held them as by an uncanny spell, "and yet it's certain he's not on the boat."
"Matt!" roared Dick, making a trumpet of his hands and calling into the blank darkness. "Ahoy, Matt!"
No answer was returned. All that could be heard was the hum of the submarine's motor, the swish of the propeller, and the lap and gurgle of waves along the rounded side.
Carl began to whimper.
"Ach, du lieber! Oof anyt'ing has habbened py dot bard oof mine, I don'd know vat I shall do, py shinks! He vas der pest friendt vat I efer hat, und—"
"Put about, Speake!" cried Dick, now thoroughly alive to the situation. "If Matt went overboard, then we're rushing away from him, and he's swimming somewhere in our wake."
The shaken helmsman immediately turned the Grampus in a wide circle and rang for full speed.
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