long before dawn howard was astir. possessing in an eminent degree the not very rare faculty of being able to awake at any hour desired, he had set his mental alarm-clock for four o’clock, and, in spite of his fatigue, had awakened within fifteen minutes of that time.
without disturbing any of the others, who lay stretched in more or less uneasy postures on the comfortless floor of the seashark, he made his way first to the conning-tower for a last examination of the fixtures there; then to the deck, where a brief inspection showed that the propeller was still clear; and, at last, to the pilot’s seat, where, taking his place, he pulled the lever that let the water into the ballast tanks.
swiftly the tanks filled, and silently and smoothly the seashark sank down[250] through the water. for a time the weed scraped against her sides, but soon this ceased, and the electric beam showed only black water before the tiny windows of her conning-tower. when fifty feet of depth was registered on the gage, howard turned on the power and, gathering way, the seashark drove along beneath the sea.
three hours later, when the weary sleepers began to stir, he was still at his post, tirelessly staring before him. as the day waxed, a faint light, interspersed with occasional stronger beams, filtered down from above, giving token that the canopy of weed had grown thin, and was broken here and there by channels of open water. soon it would be safe to go to the surface.
suddenly, with terrifying swiftness, came a sound and a shock that shook the seashark from stem to stern. simultaneously the black hull of a great ship showed across the path, not a hundred[251] feet away. there was no time to stop; no time to check the speed; scarcely time to deflect the course. but quicker than thought, quicker than lightning, automatically, howard’s trained brain and hand met the danger.
the horizontal rudders sent the seashark diving down, down, down, in a desperate endeavor to pass beneath the obstruction—down till howard saw clear water in front of him.
under the keel of the ship sped the seashark, still diving desperately. for one agonizing instant she touched, scraped, shrieked; then tore free.
but the danger was not passed; though, with reversed rudders, the seashark strove to beat her way upward. a glance at the dials showed that the depth was increasing—not diminishing; a glance behind showed that the black hull was ominously close. the slant of the seashark grew steeper, steeper; almost it stood on end. the rumble of falling[252] objects came from below, followed by startled shrieks, as the sleepers, rudely awakened, slid in a tangled heap to the after-end of the boat. howard clung wildly to the steering-wheel to save himself from being hurled down upon the rest. as he clung, confused, not understanding, the tiny vessel was shaken like a rat in a dog’s jaws. her machinery began to tear loose from its bed. mere peas in a pod, her passengers tumbled right and left as willed by the mighty power that grasped them.
after turmoil peace. howard pulled his dazed wits together to the realization that the seashark was lying quiescent on the surface of the water, though by no means on an even keel. her engines had stopped, and her lights were out. only a faint glimmer through the windows of the conning-tower illumined the scene of wreckage around him. wild with anxiety, he lowered himself into the blackness of the sleeping room, and called dorothy’s name.
[253]“here i am, frank,” came the answer.
howard groped his way toward the sound. “are you hurt?” he asked in trembling accents.
“no! i think not—certainly not seriously.” the girl’s tones were broken, but brave as ever.
“the rest of you? is everybody alive? answer as i call. joyce?”
“i’m alive, sor, and so is kathleen.”
“jackson?”
“here.”
“mr. willoughby?”
“i, too, have escaped.”
howard drew a long breath. “thank god! we seem to have our lives, at any rate.”
“what was it, sor?”
“i’m not certain. but i think a wreck must have chosen the very moment of our passage to sink, and must have drawn us down into her vortex. we escaped at last, and are now at the surface. but i fear our machinery is ruined. i’ll open the manhole.”
[254]turning, howard clambered back to his perch, and tried to push back the bolts. they were badly jammed, and it took him some time to loosen them; but at last they gave way, and he shoved back the cover and thrust out his head.
the seashark was rolling gently on smooth weed-clear water. a quarter of a mile away lay a white cruiser, and not a hundred yards distant was a boat rapidly approaching.
howard rubbed his eyes. “ahoy, the boat,” he called.
the officer in charge gasped. “way enough,” he ordered. “ahoy, the submarine. where in heaven did you come from?”
“from mighty near the other place,” answered howard grimly. “did you torpedo that wreck?”
“that’s what we did. we’re destroying derelicts, and hunting for a party of castaways from the queen. do you know anything about them?”
howard nodded affirmatively in answer to the officer’s question. “yes,” he answered. “we are the castaways—we and three others who escaped with us in this submarine from the little king of the sargasso sea. i suppose you know the story that i sent by wireless?”
the boat scraped along. “know it! i should say so,” exclaimed the startled officer. “the whole country knows it. i suppose you are——”
“frank howard. come, dorothy,” howard climbed to the deck, and helped the girl to follow him. “this is, or, rather, was—miss fairfax,” he explained. “and you——”
the officer suppressed a whistle of admiration at sight of dorothy’s flower-like face. “i’m mccully!” he answered, as he stood up and took off his cap. “i say! this is awfully lucky. colonel fairfax will be wild with delight.”
“my father! where is he?”
[256]“on board the duluth, yonder. the navy department ordered us to look for you, and he came along. there are a dozen searching for you.”
dorothy’s head swam. the month of stress was over, and the revulsion of feeling was too great not to affect her. tears started to her eyes as she turned to howard. “oh! frank!” she cried. “father is here.”
“yes. he’s here, sure,” interjected mr. mccully, “and if you’ll get into this boat we’ll take you to him in a jiffy.”
dorothy looked at howard inquiringly, and he nodded. “yes, you’d better go,” he assented. “you and mrs. joyce and willoughby, perhaps. the rest of us will stay here for the present. mr. mccully, will you kindly ask your captain if he cannot come alongside us? the seashark, though damaged by your torpedo, is still valuable, and, besides, we have about two million dollars in gold bars on board of her.”
[257]the lieutenant looked his astonishment. what manner of man was this who carried two millions of gold about in a submarine. “two millions?” he gasped.
“yes! we found an old spanish galleon with five or six millions on her, and brought away all we could. look! there’s another boat coming. is that your father on her, dorothy? and—why, yes, it’s loving, too, isn’t it? how frightfully ill he is looking.”
another boat was close at hand. dorothy looked at her, and clasped her hands with excitement. “oh! it is!” she cried. “father! father! don’t you know me?”
the gray-bearded civilian stood up. “dorothy! dorothy!” he trumpeted. “is it you! is it really you?”
“yes! yes!” as the boat touched the seashark, the girl fairly sprang into her father’s arms. “oh! father! father!” she cried. “how good it is to see you.”
meanwhile, lieutenant mccully had turned to howard and the others, who[258] had now climbed up on the deck. “the duluth is moving,” he explained. “captain morehouse probably intends to come alongside without being asked. hadn’t you all better get into this boat, and let my men fasten your manhole down? the waves from the duluth might swamp her, you know.”
“thank you. if you’ll be so kind. but first let me present my fellow travelers.”
in a few moments the seashark was made safe against swamping, and her former passengers were about to enter the cutter, when dorothy called to howard: “frank, dear, i want you.”
everybody started. not one there was ignorant of howard’s record, and the use of his christian name by the girl was somewhat surprising.
“frank, dear!” cried the girl, alive with excitement. “this is my father. father, this is lieutenant frank howard, who saved me from death and from worse than death. see, i wear his ring.”
[259]she held up her hand, and, at the sight of the plain gold band, colonel fairfax’s outstretched hand dropped heavily to his side. “a wedding ring,” he gasped.
“yes, father. i am not dorothy fairfax any more. i am dorothy howard now. mr. willoughby married us day before yesterday.”
all colonel fairfax’s coolness; all the aplomb that had made him a master of men; all his traditional self-possession dropped from him, and he stood stammering like any schoolboy.
dorothy’s eyes sparkled. “it’s all right, father,” she declared. “frank married me to save me from that horrible forbes. he didn’t want to do so because of that ridiculous accusation against him, but he couldn’t help it. i insisted on it. shake hands with him. you and i are going to find the real murderer, and clear his name.”
“but—but—mr. loving——”
loving, his face pale, but with a forced[260] smile on his lips, struck in. “hallo, howard, old man,” he said, holding out his hand. “i was just waiting my chance to speak to you. frank howard is all right, colonel,” he continued earnestly, turning to the elder man. “i’ve told you so before, you know.”
colonel fairfax had recovered his poise somewhat. “well,” he said, “this isn’t the time or place to talk about it, though it is the time to thank you, mr. howard, for saving my girl’s life. it nearly killed me when i lost her. come, let’s get on board—good heavens! loving! what’s the matter?”
loving’s face had grown white as death, and his distended eyes seemed popping from their sockets. following his gaze, the others saw mr. willoughby picking his way along the seashark toward them.
“ah! mr. howard,” he said, holding out his hand to loving, “i’m glad to see you here, for, of course, it means that you[261] must have cleared yourself of that terrible charge. quite a coincidence having another of the same name in our little party, isn’t it? i had meant to speak to him about you, but we have been in such a turmoil that i haven’t had the chance.”
the changing expressions in the faces of his listeners suddenly caught the good man’s attention. “why! what is the matter?” he explained. “i—i hope i don’t—— surely you have cleared yourself of that charge, mr. howard?”
loving’s dry lips moved, but no sound came. the other men, too, were stricken dumb. only dorothy found breath.
“this gentleman is mr. loving, mr. willoughby,” she gasped. “why do you call him howard?”
the missionary turned a bewildered face to the girl. “i don’t understand,” he stammered. “i knew this gentleman as mr. howard in porto rico, where i married him to dolores montoro. later she followed him to new york, and he[262] was reported to have murdered her. i was coming to testify when i was wrecked, and——”
loving burst suddenly into a fit of jarring laughter. “you needn’t say any more, mr. willoughby,” he cackled. “you’ve put the noose around my neck all right. yes, i did it, i did it. i married that she-devil under your name, howard, and when she followed me to new york i killed her. i didn’t mean to get you into it, but you got a letter she intended for me, and butted in just in time to get accused. you’ll bear me witness that i tried to save you; and i would have done it, too, if those fools in porto rico hadn’t identified your photograph as the man who married dolores. all smooth-faced men in uniform look alike to them, i suppose. well, it’s all up now, and i’m glad of it. maybe you won’t believe me, but i haven’t had a happy moment since you were arrested. i’m not so bad as you think; that woman was a fiend and—but[263] there’s the ship. i’ll go on board and write out a formal confession.”
unseen, the duluth had approached and, as she ran smoothly alongside, loving caught a jacob’s-ladder swinging from a boom, and ran up it to the deck.
before any one could follow, the duluth swung past, and, when a moment later her reversed screw brought her to a halt, the sound of a pistol-shot in her ward-room told that loving had signed his confession with his blood.
