_ CHAPTER XXII. SUBMARINE B-2
At the dock of the navy yard a submarine lay ready for departure.
There was nothing about its appearance to indicate that its mission was of more than ordinary importance. But it was an unusual thing to see a woman aboard, and the curiosity of the crew was matched by that of the young officers who had come down to see Summers off on his voyage of many chances.
The officers got little reward for their considerate interest. Ensign Summers was engaged. He was explaining to Pauline, as they stood on the deck of the war-craft, the entire history of submarines from the time of Caesar, or Washington, or somebody to the present day, and Pauline was listening with that childlike simplicity which women use for the purpose of making men look foolish.
"By Jove! I thought he was tied, heart and hope, to the lovely foreigner," exclaimed one of the shoreward observers.
"So he is," said another. "But Mlle. de Longeon isn't interested in his daily toil. Do you know who the young lady up there is?"
"No. She must have got a dispensation from the secretary himself to go on this trip."
"So she did--easy as snapping your thumb. She's Miss Pauline Marvin, daughter of the richest man that has died in twenty years."
The boat gong sounded the signal of departure.
Summers, with a hasty apology, left Pauline and stepped forward. The engines began to rumble. The deadly and delicate craft--masterpiece of modern naval achievement--drew slowly from the pier.
There was a shout.
Summers, delivering rapid orders on deck, turned with an expression of annoyance to see his faithful man servant, Catin, out of breath and excited, rushing toward the boat.
Summers ordered the vessel stopped. It had moved not more than stepping distance from the pier and in a moment Catin was beside his master on the deck.
"She told me it must--" he paused, gasping for breath.
"Who told you what?" demanded Summers.
"Mlle. de Longeon. I am sure it is a message of importance. She told me I must give it to you before you risked your life on the voyage."
"Mlle. de Longeon!" He caught the letter from Catin's hand.
"My Hero--I cannot keep the secret any longer, cannot wait to tell you that it is you I love. Estelle de Longeon."
Summers walked slowly, dizzily up the deck was in an ecstasy. He was oblivious to all the world--even to Pauline, who stood questioning an officer at the rail. The fact that his servant, Catin, slipped silently down the hatchway to the main compartment, and thence on to the pump room at the vessel's bottom, would hardly have interested him ---even if he had known it.
"Shall we put off, sir?"
The second officer saluted.
The Ensign came to himself instantly. "Yes, of course. I put back only for an important message," he said. "My man got off, did he?"
"I think so."
"All right. Go ahead."
Catin, with that rare fortune which sometimes favors the wicked, had chosen precisely the right moment for his ruse. The crew of the submarine were all on deck save those in the engine room, and his quick passage to the vitals of the vessel was unseen.
Once in the pump room, he hastily drew from under his coat the bomb placed in his hands at the conference of diplomats, wound its clock-work spring and laid it beside the pumps.
There was a strange look on the man's face as he did this--a look at once proud and pitiful. Catin had not sense of treachery or shame. The deed in itself did not lack the dignity of courage, for, with the others, he was planned his own death. And while the others were to die suddenly, ignorant of their peril, Catin was to die in deliberate knowledge of it.
On deck Pauline was eagerly questioning an under officer about the torpedoes, when Summers came up.
"You'll have to come down and see for yourself," he said, overhearing her.
"First I'll show you the pump room--the most important part of us," he was saying as Catin, in the boat's bottom, first caught the sound of nearing voices.
Catin leaped up the steps from the pump room. He was in the nick of time. A large locker in the main compartment gave him refuge just as Pauline and Summers reached the room.
"The pumps are our life-savers," said Summers, as he directed Pauline down the second ladder. "If they go wrong when we're under water we can't come up."
"And what do you do then?" asked Pauline innocently.
"Oh, just-stay down."
Catin waited breathless in his hiding place until they returned. "By heaven, they didn't find it!" he breathed eagerly.
Pauline and Ensign Summers stood at the rail watching the foamy rush of a fast motor boat, when a hail sounded across the water.
A man was standing up in the motor boat and calling through a megaphone.
Summers raised his glasses. "Do you know who that is?" he asked laughingly.
"Of course not. What does he want?"
"It's Harry, and I suspect he wants to take you away from us."
Pauline uttered an exclamation of annoyance.
"Isn't he silly!" she cried, "One would think I was, a baby, the way he watches me."
Soon the voice of Harry could be plainly distinguished.
"Clear your ship; I am going to sink you," he called.
"Cargo too precious this trip; don't do it," answered Summers.
"Let me take the megaphone," demanded Pauline.
"What do you mean by following us?" she cried.
"I don't trust that sardine can, and I want a regular boat on hand when you are wrecked."
"I am very angry with you. It looks as if--"
Her words were drowned in Summers' laughter.
"Never mind. I know a way we can escape from him," he said.
"How?"
"Why, sink the boat."
"That will be splendid."
He stepped aside and gave a terse order. Delightedly, Pauline watched the brief, machine-like movements of the crew trimming the deck. Summers escorted her back to the conning tower. They descended. Within a few moments the wonderful craft was buried under the waves.
"There he is--looking for us," laughed Summers, as he made room for Pauline at the periscope.
Amazed, fascinated, she gazed from what seemed the bottom of the sea out upon the rolling surface of the waves. Harry's motorboat was near and he was standing in the bow, scanning the water with binoculars.
"And he can't see us?" asked Pauline.
"Oh, yes, he'll pick up out periscope after a while. Shall we fire the torpedo at him?"
"Yes, please," said Pauline.
Summers' laugh was cut short. As if someone had taken his jest in earnest and really fired a projectile, the crash of an explosion came from the bottom of the boat.
"Stay here--" ordered Summers with a set face as he joined the rush of seamen into the pump room.
But Pauline followed.
An officer, with blanched face but steady voice, came up to Summers.
"What was it, Grimes?"
"It seems to have been a bomb, sir. There was no powder down there."
The face of the Ensign darkened with suspicion and alarm.
"A bomb? So they were going after us--the enemy! We'd better get right up and back to port, Grimes."
"I have to report, sir--the pumps are disabled."
Summers turned with a look of pity toward Pauline, who stood at his elbow.
"And we can't get up again?" she questioned.
"There is one chance, but--" He stopped openly and listened. "Open that locker," he commanded.
A seaman pulled back the door of the locker and disclosed the cringing form and defiant face of Catin.
"Catin! You!"
The man stepped forward with a smile of triumph.
"You set off the bomb? You wanted to kill me?"
"I did my duty. I obeyed my orders as you obey your orders. I had no enmity for you. I am, in fact, sorry that you were fool enough not to see that I was a little more than a valet."
"You are a spy, Catin?"
"Yes, sir. And I have done my work, and I am willing to die with the rest of you."
Pauline drew back, shuddering. She touched Summers' arm.
"Oh, Mr. Summers, I believe--"
"What is it?"
"I believe I know of the plot. I was in the conservatory at the naval ball. A man and a woman--"
"A woman?"
"Mlle. de Longeon and her diplomatic friend--you remember."
"Yes--well?"
"They talked together in whispers. The man said 'The thing will be done on Submarine B-2 tomorrow.'"
A look of agony that the fear of death could not have caused came into the face of the young Ensign.
"Mlle. de Longeon? No!"
"Yes! Mlle. de Longeon," sneered Catin stepping nearer. "Mlle. de Longeon is the principal proof of my statement that you are a fool. Mlle. de Longeon recommended me to you as a capable valet, did she not? Mlle. de Longeon frequently was your guest. Now Mlle. de Longeon has the plans of your submarine and your torpedo--plans which I took the liberty of removing from the little cupboard over the desk in your workroom."
Summers sprang forward but he recovered himself.
"I should have told you," wailed Pauline.
"How should you have known?" said Summers. In a moment he had lost his life work and his love. Suddenly he straightened himself. The soldier in him mastered the man.
"There is still a chance--one little chance," he said.
"To get out?" cried Pauline.
"Yes--through the torpedo tube."
She shuddered.
"I am going to make you do it," he said, "because it is the only chance. The men will follow you. Harry's boat will be near."
"And you?"
"I do not matter any more. Come."
A gunner opened the great tube as Summers led Pauline into the torpedo room. Obediently she entered the strange passageway of peril and of hope.
"Goodbye," he said, "and good luck."
"Goodbye," she answered. "You are a brave man. You are as brave-- you are as fine--as Harry."
From the end of the torpedo tube a woman's form shot to the surface of the water. Choking, dazed, but courageous, Pauline tried to turn on her back and gain breath. But they were well out to seat and the waves were crushing.
"What is that?" asked Harry, pointing and passing his glasses to the boatman.
The man looked and without a word swung the craft about and put the engine at top speed. And in a few moments Harry's strong arms drew her from the water.
"My darling, what has happened?" he gasped.
"Don't think of me--think of them!" she begged, weakly. "They were trapped--down there. There was a bomb--a plot--the machinery is ruined. Harry, help them!"
The boatman who overheard Pauline's first cry of appeal, now came forward respectfully. "There's a revenue cutter--the Iroquois-- coming out," he said, significantly.
Harry looked. "Splendid!" he cried. "Can we signal her?"
"No, but we can catch her?"
Shouts from a speeding motorboat brought the Government vessel to a stop. Officers came to the rail and helped Harry and Pauline to the deck.
"Ensign Summers and his crew are sunk in their submarine. The pumps are gone. There was a bomb explosion. Can you get help?"
"Where are they?"
"You can pick up their buoy with a glass--there."
The chief officer looked through his glass. "Yes," he said. "You'll come abroad, or keep your own boat?"
"We've got another piece of work to do--if we can leave our friends to your guarding," said Harry.
"Well have the wrecking tugs and divers in twenty minutes."
Harry and Pauline climbed back to the motorboat and sped up the bay.
"What did you mean another piece of work?" asked Pauline as she clung to his arm.
"My car is at the Navy Yard pier," was his only answer.
She still clung to him in tremulous uncertainty as the motor sped them up through Broadway, into Fifth avenue, and on to the door of Mlle. de Longeon's hotel.
She and the diplomatic grandee who had held the confidential conference with her in the conservatory at the naval ball were together in her suite.
"And you have the plans actually in your possession?" he said.
"Yes. It has been a tedious process. It was easy to make him fall in love, but he is so fearfully scrupulous about his work. It took even his valet three months to locate the secret hiding place of the papers."
"A little more caution mingled with his scruples and he would not now be dead at the bottom of the bay."
"Oh, this is the day, is it?" asked Mlle. de Longeon, wearily. "After all, it is rather cruel to Catin."
"To die for his country?"
"Nonsense! He dies because he knows he would be killed in a crueler way if he refused to obey you."
The diplomat smiled. "Will you give me the plans?"
"Yes--why, Marie, what is it?"
A maid had entered with cards. "I am not at home today."
Mlle. de Longeon moved to her writing desk, removed from it a packet of papers, and, with a little courtesy gave it into the eager hands of the diplomat.
"It has been a splendid achievement, Mademoiselle," he said, enthusiastically. "I shall see that--what? Who is this?" he exclaimed, as Harry and Pauline burst into the room.
"Marie, Marie, I told you that I was at home to no one!" screamed Mlle. de Longeon.
"How dare you intrude in these apartments?" demanded the diplomat.
"I dare, because I want those papers," declared Harry.
The packet was still in the diplomat's hands. He tried to thrust it into his pocket, but Harry was upon him. They clinched, broke from each other's grasp and struggled furiously.
As the last resource the diplomat drew the packet from his breast and flung it across the room toward Mlle. de Longeon. She pounced upon it. But Pauline was beside her. Stronger both in body and in spirit than the adventuress, she grasped her wrists, and in the luxurious, soft-curtained room there raged two battles.
But the struggles did not last long. Harry hurled his antagonist, an exhausted wreck, to the floor, and sprang to the side of Pauline. Throwing off Mlle. de Longeon's grasp, he picked up the packet from the floor, and with Pauline ran from the room.
A revenue cutter was landing a group of faint and silent men, at the pier of the Navy Yard when an automobile flashed in.
"Hurrah! They did it! You're safe!" cried Pauline, rushing past Harry to greet Ensign Summers.
The officer took her extended hands gratefully, but there was no light in his eyes as he answered.
"Safe--and dishonored," he said. "I am only glad for my men."
"Why dishonored?" asked Harry.
"Don't you understand?"
"The man," said Pauline, curiously, "the man who placed the bomb? Where is he?"
"Dead," said Summers. "He broke the tube after you were released and then attacked me with a knife. I had to kill him."
"Good for you!" broke in Harry. "But what's all the gloom talk for? This stuff about dishonor? You've proved yourself a hero, man."
"I have lost the most important documents of the Navy Department-- through a silly entanglement with a woman."
"No, you haven't. We went and got them for you," said Harry, presenting the packet of plans. _