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Here despatches awaited us, as Tom Finch had previously been informed at Cape Coast Castle would be the case, ordering the Porpoise to proceed immediately to the Pacific and join the admiral on that station at Callao; and, accordingly, after one of the briefest of stays at a port which I have always longed since to have a more extended acquaintanceship with, we up anchor and paddled away to our assigned rendezvous not by way of the "Horn," which we did not go round, as I had imagined we would, for it was far too stormy; but, through the Straits of Magellan, which are easy enough of passage to a steamer, independent almost of winds and currents, although somewhat perilous to sailing vessels, especially during the winter months.
Some fish resembling the porpoise rose here and there, back and forth above the shadows winged snow-white cranes so slender one wondered the sea breeze did not wreck them. Above all the quiet and peace and contentment of a perfect tropical day enfolded the landscape in a silence only occasionally disturbed by the cry of a passing bird.
She rolls like a porpoise in a seaway, and she'd crush us like an egg shell if we got too close. All we can do is to hold off a bit, until this blows out. And it can't last very long at this season of the year. Storms never do." For all the hopeful prediction of the young officer, this blow showed no signs of an early abatement.
From the huge black porpoise, tumbling through the turgid stream of the Ganges, to the bright, sparkling, silvery shoals of delicate chillooahs or poteeahs, which one sees darting in and out among the rice stubbles in every paddy field during the rains. During the middle, and about the end of the rains, is the best time for fishing; the whole country is then a perfect network of streams.
There was a hissing sound as the sea water rushed in, and the Porpoise gave a sudden lurch. Then they could all feel the submarine sinking. Down and down she went. Would she ever stop? Would the professor be able to raise her again? There were questions that troubled everyone. Down and down the craft sunk, until by the gage it was indicated that she was twenty feet below the surface.
"That's certain," said Bell. "What shall we do?" asked the doctor. "Continue our route," said Hatteras coldly. "I don't know anything about the Porpoise, but I do know that the Forward is waiting for our return." The travellers went on their weary way, each thinking of the discovery they had just made. Hatteras frowned with uneasiness. "What can the Porpoise be?" he asked himself.
He reconnoitred the enemy's trenches, and, under the covering fire of a destroyer, lit his flares at intervals along the beach. He had some difficulty in finding his boat again. A mysterious fin accompanied him during part of the swim. He at first took it to be that of a shark, but found later it belonged to a harmless porpoise.
Jacobs himself was not yet. I fancy that, at most, if he had made his nurse laugh it was about all he had achieved at that early date. Therefore, I repeat, other disabilities apart, I could not have been prepared for the sight of that husky old porpoise. The object of his concise address was to call my attention to a rope which he incontinently flung down for me to catch.
And we did haul in; but the fish was strong and muscular, and struggled hard for liberty and life. In spite of our prompt and vigorous exertions, he was dragged under the brig's bottom; and if he had not been struck in a workmanlike manner, the harpoon would have drawn out, and the porpoise would have escaped, to be torn to pieces by his unsympathizing companions.
The next instant the Porpoise was riding the waves of the little bay, dancing about as lightly as a cork, though, from the nature of her construction, she was quite low in the water, only about three feet of freeboard showing where the platform was located. "Well, she floats, anyhow," remarked the professor. "Row out and fasten cables fore and aft," he went on, turning to the two machinists.
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