Late in the afternoon of the day they left Lota Bay the _Grampus_ spoke the British ship _Sovereign_, bound from Santiago to Liverpool. By means of a megaphone, Matt had a brief talk with the captain of the sailing vessel.
"What craft is that?" inquired the British captain, after answering Matt's hail with information concerning his own vessel.
"The submarine _Grampus_," answered Matt, "six weeks out from Belize, British Honduras, and bound for San Francisco."
"My word!" came from the other megaphone. "Sure about that?"
Matt was "stumped." It was certainly an odd question to ask.
"Well, we passed another submarine, two hours ago, and she was towing a torpedo. Said she had discharged it at a target and was going to beach it somewhere, and get it in shape for further use. But the bally joke of it is that the captain of that other submarine said that _his_ boat was the United States submarine _Grampus_. It's a main queer go if there are two submarines of that name both belonging to the United States Government."
"Well, what do you think of that?" muttered Glennie, leaning out of the hatch. "The nerve of it!"
"That other boat was the _Pom_," called back Matt, "sent over to Chili by a firm of French shipbuilders. She was stolen from the harbor of Lota by a handful of Japs."
The rest of it Matt could not hear. The two boats had merely spoken each other in passing and were quickly out of reach of each other's megaphones.
"Those Sons of the Rising Sun are stealing our thunder," remarked Glennie.
"I suppose," returned Matt, "that it's a heap safer for the Japs to call their boat the _Grampus_ than the _Pom_. If they happened to speak a vessel that knew of the stealing of the _Pom_ results might prove disastrous if they told the truth."
Matt descended to the periscope room to give the news to Carl and Dick.
"Dot's der vorst yet!" grunted Carl. "Der itee oof dem Chaps calling deir old frog-eader poat der _Grampus_! I don'd like dot. Id vas some insulds."
"I guess we can stand it, Carl," said Matt.
"Did Pons tell you anything about that French submarine, matey?" inquired Dick.
"A little, but not as much as I would have liked to learn. The _Pom_, I infer, is smaller than the _Grampus_, and is propelled by electricity when submerged and by gasoline on the surface. She's only able to stay under water an hour. Captain Nemo, Jr., could teach those French builders a trick or two with his patent submerged exhausts."