United States or Cocos Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Before either of us could speak, there was a spurt of water out in the harbour, a cloud of spray, and the Z99 sank in a mass of bubbles. She had heeled over and was resting on the mud and ooze of the harbour bottom. The water had closed over her, and she was gone. Instantly all the terrible details of the sinking of the Lutin and other submarines flashed over me.
I fancied I could see on the Z99 the overturned accumulators. I imagined the stifling fumes, the struggle for breath in the suddenly darkened hull. Almost as if it had happened half an hour ago, I saw it. "Thank God for telautomatics," I murmured, as the thought swept over me of what we had escaped. "No one was aboard her, at least."
Burke disappeared, after a hasty conference with Kennedy, presumably to watch Mrs. Brainard, the hotel, and the Stamford cottage to see who went in and out. "I've had the Z99 brought out of its shed," remarked the captain, as we rose from the breakfast-table. "There was nothing wrong as far as I could discover last night or by a more careful inspection this morning.
Perhaps in some way the gasoline motor had been started while the boat was depressed, the "gas" had escaped, combined with air, and a spark had caused an explosion. There were so many possibilities that it staggered me. Captain Shirley sat stunned. Yet here was the one great question, Whence had come the impulse that had sent the famous Z99 to her fate?
We were standing for a moment in a wide Colonial hall in which a fire was crackling in a huge brick fireplace, taking the chill off the night air. "Let me give you a demonstration, first," added the captain. "Perhaps Z99 will work perhaps not."
An evil smile seemed to spread over his face. "Then we'll get them all, this time. Man the submarine the Z99." All left the office on the run, hurrying around the ledge and down into the open hatch of the submarine. Del Mar came along a moment later, giving orders sharply and quickly. The hatch was closed and the vessel sealed.
The wireless impulses are carried down to her from an inconspicuous float which trails along the surface and carries a short aerial with a wire running down, like a mast, forming practically invisible antennae." As he was talking the boat was being "trimmed" by admitting water as ballast into the proper tanks. "The Z99," he went on, "is a submersible, not a diving, submarine.
"Let us try her again without a crew." Five minutes later we had ascended to the aerial conning-tower, and all was in readiness to repeat the trial of the night before. Vicious and sly the Z99 looked in the daytime as she slipped off, under the unseen guidance of the wireless, with death hidden under her nose.
"The Z99 is moored just below us at my private dock," began the captain. "I have a shed down there where we usually keep her, but I expected you, and she is waiting, thoroughly overhauled. I have signalled to my men fellows I can trust, too, who used to be with me in the navy to cast her off. There now we are ready." The captain turned a switch.
Then came the B type, in which the hydroplane appeared; the C type, in which it was more prominent, and a D type, where submergence is on a perfectly even keel, somewhat like our Lakes. Well, this boat of mine is a last word the Z99. Call it the Turtle, if you like."
Word Of The Day