Tom Swift and His Submarine Boat, Howard R. Garis [free books to read txt] 📗
- Author: Howard R. Garis
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“No; but maybe you can’t rise,” remarked Tom grimly.
“Oh, we won’t think of that. Of course, I’d like to go. I fully expected to be killed in the Red Cloud, but as I wasn’t I’m ready to take a chance in the water. On the whole, I think I prefer to be buried at sea, anyhow. Now, then, will you take me?”
“I think I can safely promise,” answered Tom with a smile at his friend’s enthusiasm.
The two were approaching the city, having walked along as they talked. There were still some sand dunes near the road, and they kept on the side of these, nearest the beach, where they could watch the breakers.
“But you haven’t told me where you are going,” went on Mr. Damon, after blessing a few dozen objects. “Where do the Government trials take place?”
“Well,” replied the lad, “to be frank with you, we have abandoned our intention of trying for the Government prize.”
“Not going to try for it? Bless my slippers! Why not? Isn’t fifty thousand dollars worth striving for? And, with the kind of a submarine you say you have, you ought to be able to win.”
“Yes, probably we could win,” admitted the young inventor, “but we are going to try for a better prize.”
“A better one? I don’t understand.”
“Sunken treasure,” explained Tom. “There’s a ship sunk off the coast of Uruguay, with three hundred thousand dollars in gold bullion aboard. Dad and I are going to try to recover that in our submarine. We’re going to start day after to-morrow, and, if you like, you may go along.”
“Go along! Of course I’ll go along!” cried the eccentric man. “But I never heard of such a thing. Sunken treasure! Three hundred thousand dollars in gold! My, what a lot of money! And to go after it in a submarine! It’s as good as a story!”
“Yes, we hope to recover all the treasure,” said the lad. “We ought to be able to claim at least half of it.”
“Bless my pocketbook!” cried Mr. Damon, but Tom did not hear him. At that instant his attention was attracted by seeing two men emerge from behind the sand dune near which he and Mr. Damon had halted momentarily, when the youth explained about the treasure. The man looked sharply at Tom. A moment later the first man was joined by another, and at the sight of him our hero could not repress an exclamation of alarm. For the second man was none other than Addison Berg.
The latter glanced quickly at Tom, and then, with a hasty word to his companion, the two swung around and made off in the opposite direction to that in which they had been walking.
“What’s the matter?” asked Mr. Damon, seeing the young inventor was strangely affected.
“That—that man,” stammered the lad.
“You don’t mean to tell me that was one the Happy Harry gang, do you?”
“No. But one, or both of those men, may prove to be worse. That second man was Addison Berg, and he’s agent for a firm of submarine boat builders who are rivals of dad’s. Berg has been trying to find out why we abandoned our intention of competing for the Government prize.”
“I hope you didn’t tell him.”
“I didn’t intend to,” replied Tom, smiling grimly, “but I’m afraid I have, however He certainly overheard what I said. I spoke too loud. Yes, he must have heard me. That’s why he hurried off so.”
“Possibly no harm is done. You didn’t give the location of the sunken ship.”
“No; but I guess from what I said it will be easy enough to find. Well, if we’re going to have a fight for the possession of that sunken gold, I’m ready for it. The Advance is well equipped for a battle. I must tell dad of this. It’s my fault.”
“And partly mine, for asking you such leading questions in a public place,” declared Mr. Damon. “Bless my coat-tails, but I’m sorry! Maybe, after all, those men were so interested in what they themselves were saying that they didn’t understand what you said.”
But if there had been any doubts on this score they would have been dissolved had Tom and his friend been able to see the actions of Mr. Berg and his companion a little later. The plans of the treasure-hunters had been revealed to their ears.
While Tom and Mr. Damon continued on to Atlantis after the oil, the young inventor lamenting from time to time that his remarks about the real destination of the Advance had been overheard by Mr. Berg, the latter and his companion were hastening back along the path that ran on one side of the sand dunes.
“What’s your hurry?” asked Mr. Maxwell, who was with the submarine agent. “You turned around as if you were shot when you saw that man and the lad. There didn’t appear to be any cause for such a hurry. From what I could hear they were talking about a submarine. You’re in the same business. You might be friends.”
“Yes, we might,” admitted Mr. Berg with a peculiar smile; “but, unless I’m very much mistaken, we’re going to be rivals.”
“Rivals? What do you mean?”
“I can’t tell you now. Perhaps I may later. But if you don’t mind, walk a little faster, please. I want to get to a long-distance telephone.”
“What for?”
“I have just overheard something that I wish to communicate to my employers, Bentley & Eagert.”
“Overheard something? I don’t see what it could be, unless that lad—”
“You’ll learn in good time,” went on the submarine agent. “But I must telephone at once.”
A little later the two men had reached a trolley line that ran into Atlantis, and they arrived at the city before Mr. Damon and Tom got there, as the latter had to go by a circuitous route. Mr. Berg lost no time in calling up his firm by telephone.
“I have had another talk with Mr. Swift,” he reported to Mr. Bentley, who came to the instrument in Philadelphia.
“Well, what does he say?” was the impatient question. “I can’t understand his not wanting to try for the Government prize. It is astonishing. You said you were going to discover the reason, Mr Berg, but you haven’t done so.”
“I have.”
“What is it?”
“Well, the reason Mr. Swift and his son don’t care to try for the fifty thousand dollar prize is that they are after one of three hundred thousand dollars.”
“Three hundred thousand dollars!” cried Mr. Bentley. “What government is going to offer such a prize as that for submarines, when they are getting almost as common as airships? We ought to have a try for that ourselves. What government is it?”
“No government at all. But I think we ought to have a try for it, Mr. Bentley.”
“Explain.”
“Well, I have just learned, most accidentally, that the Swifts are going after sunken treasure—three hundred thousand dollars in gold bullion.”
“Sunken treasure? Where?
“I don’t know exactly, but off the coast of Uruguay,” and Mr. Berg rapidly related what he had overheard Tom tell Mr. Damon. Mr. Bentley was much excited and impatient for more details, but his agent could not give them to him.
“Well,” concluded the senior member of the firm of submarine boat builders, “if the Swifts are going after treasure, so can we. Come to Philadelphia at once, Mr. Berg, and we’ll talk this matter over. There is no time to lose. We can afford to forego the Government prize for the chance of getting a much larger one. We have as much right to search for the sunken gold as the Swifts have. Come here at once, and we will make our plans.”
“All right,” agreed the agent with a smile as he hung up the receiver. “I guess,” he murmured to himself, “that you won’t be so high and mighty with me after this, Tom Swift. We’ll see who has the best boat, after all. We’ll have a contest and a competition, but not for a government prize. It will be for the sunken gold.”
It was easy to see that Mr. Berg was much pleased with himself.
Meanwhile, Tom and Mr. Damon had reached Atlantis, and had purchased the oil. They started back, but Tom took a street leading toward the center of the place, instead of striking for the beach path, along which they had come.
“Where are you going?” asked Mr. Damon.
“I want to see if that Andy Foger has come back here,” replied the lad, and he told of having been shut in the tank by the bully.
“I’ve never properly punished him for that trick,” he went on, “though we did manage to burst his auto tires. I’m curious to know how he knew enough to turn that gear and shut the tank door. He must have been loitering near the shop, seen me go in the submarine alone, watched his chance and sneaked in after me. But I’d like to get a complete explanation, and if I once got hold of Andy I could make him talk,” and Tom clenched his fist in a manner that augured no good for the squint-eyed lad. “He was stopping at the same hotel with Mr. Berg, and he hurried away after the trick he played on me. I next saw him in Shopton, but I thought perhaps he might have come back here. I’m going to inquire at the hotel,” he added.
Andy’s name was not on the register since his hasty flight, however, and Tom, after inquiring from the clerk and learning that Mr. Berg was still a guest at the hostelry, rejoined Mr. Damon.
“Bless my hat!” exclaimed that eccentric individual as they started back to the lonely beach where the submarine was awaiting her advent into the water. “The more I think of the trip I’m going to take, the more I like it.”
“I hope you will,” remarked Tom. “It will be a new experience for all of us. There’s only one thing worrying me, and that is about Mr. Berg having overheard what I said.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. Can’t we slip away and leave no trace in the water?”
“I hope so, but I must tell dad and Mr. Sharp about what happened.”
The aged inventor was not a little alarmed at what his son related, but he agreed with Mr. Damon, whom he heartily welcomed, that little was to be apprehended from Berg and his employers.
“They know we’re after a sunken wreck, but that’s all they do know,” said Tom’s father. “We are only waiting for the arrival of Captain Alden Weston, and then we will go. Even if Bentley & Eagert make a try for the treasure we’ll have the start of them, and this will be a case of first come, first served. Don’t worry, Tom. I’m glad you’re going, Mr Damon. Come, I will show you our submarine.”
As father and son, with their guest, were going to the machine shop, Mr. Sharp met them. He had a letter in his hand.
“Good news!” the balloonist cried. “Captain Weston will be with us to-morrow. He will arrive at the Beach Hotel in Atlantis, and wants one of us to meet him there. He has considerable information about the wreck.”
“The Beach Hotel,” murmured Tom. “That is where Mr. Berg is stopping. I hope he doesn’t worm any of our secret from Captain Weston,” and it was with a feeling of uneasiness that the young inventor continued after his father and Mr. Damon to where the submarine was.
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