"Matt!" roared Dick, making a trumpet of his hands and calling into the blank darkness. "Ahoy, Matt!"
No answer was returned. All that could be heard was the hum of the submarine's motor, the swish of the propeller, and the lap and gurgle of waves along the rounded side.
"Ach, du lieber! Oof anyt'ing has habbened py dot bard oof mine, I don'd know vat I shall do, py shinks! He vas der pest friendt vat I efer hat, und----"
"Put about, Speake!" cried Dick, now thoroughly alive to the situation. "If Matt went overboard, then we're rushing away from him, and he's swimming somewhere in our wake."
The shaken helmsman immediately turned the _Grampus_ in a wide circle and rang for full speed.
Matt was very much worried when Dick and Carl, agreeably to their orders, went below. It was not the strange visitor that had passed the bows of the _Grampus_ on its glowing way that rested heavily on his mind, but the news gathered from the captain of the mail boat that had been spoken early in the day.
On leaving the western end of the Strait of Magellan, the submarine and her crew had, as they supposed, left behind them for the rest of their cruise their wily enemies, the Sons of the Rising Sun. They had had trouble enough on account of the Japanese while coming through the strait, and Matt thought that he and his friends were entitled to a respite, so far as the nefarious plots of the fanatical young Japs were concerned.[A]
[A] The adventures of the motor boys, in and around Magellan Strait, were set forth in No. 19 of the MOTOR STORIES, entitled, "Motor Matt's Defiance; or, Around the Horn."
It was the responsibility for the safety of the _Grampus_ that rested so heavily on the young motorist's mind. Weeks before, when the submarine had left Belize, British Honduras, Captain Nemo, Jr., the owner of the boat, had placed the craft entirely in Matt's hands.
"I wouldn't trust the _Grampus_ with any one else, Matt," declared the captain. "But you've got nerve, your judgment is good, you know the craft from one end to the other, and whenever anything goes wrong and you get into a scrape, you've got a knack of always getting out of it without much damage to yourself. A hundred thousand dollars is to be paid for the _Grampus_ when she reaches Mare Island. If the submarine doesn't reach there in good condition, the money will not be paid. Sickness will detain me for a while in Belize, and so that puts this work of taking the boat around the Horn up to you. Now go ahead!"