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“I have always been poor,” she said, looking him frankly in the face. “But, John, that is not it. I am afraid. He–Mr. Foster, threatened us–vowed we would never– Oh, and he turned something back there after you started. He did it so quickly–I just barely saw him as I turned to follow you. I do not know what it was. I did not understand what you were describing.”

“He turned something! What?”

“It was a wheel of some kind.”

Ross looked at Foster. He was now on the conning-tower ladder, half-way up, looking at his opened watch, with a lurid, malevolent twist to his features.

“Say your prayers!” yelled Foster, insanely. “You two are going to die, I say. Die, both of you.”

He sprang up the ladder, and Ross bounded aft, somewhat bewildered by the sudden turn of events. He was temporarily at his wits’ end. But when Foster floundered down to the deck in a deluge of water from above, and the conning-tower hatch closed with a ringing clang, he understood. One look at the depth indicator was enough. The boat was sinking. He sprang to the sea-cock valve. It was wide open.

“Blast your wretched, black heart and soul,” he growled, as he hove the wheel around. “Did you open this valve? Hey, answer me. You did, didn’t you? And thought to escape yourself–you coward!”

“Oh, God!” cried Foster, running about distractedly. “We’re sinking, and I can’t get out.”

Ross tightened the valve, and sprang toward him, the murder impulse strong in his soul. In imagination, he felt his fingers on the throat of the other, and every strong muscle of his arms closing more tightly his grip. Then their plight dominated his thoughts; he merely struck out silently, and knocked the photographer down.

“Get up,” he commanded, as the prostrate man rolled heavily over on his hands and knees. “Get up, I may need you.”

Foster arose, and seated himself on a torpedo amidships, where he sank his head in his hands. With a glance at him, and a reassuring look at the girl, who still remained forward, Ross went aft to connect up the pump. But as he went, he noticed that the deck inclined more and more with each passing moment.

He found the depressed engine room full of water, and the motor flooded. It was useless to start it; it would short-circuit at the first contact; and he halted, wondering at the boat’s being down by the stern so much, until a snapping sound from forward apprised him of the reason.

The painter at the boom had held her nose up until the weight was too much for it, and, with its parting, the little craft assumed nearly an even keel, while the water rushed forward among the battery jars beneath the deck. Then a strong, astringent odor arose through the seams in the deck, and Ross became alive.

“Battery gas!” he exclaimed, as he ran amidships, tumbling Foster off the torpedo with a kick–for he was in his way. He reached up and turned valve after valve, admitting compressed air from the flasks to the filled tanks, to blow out the water. This done, he looked at the depth indicator; it registered seventy feet; but, before he could determine the speed of descent, there came a shock that permeated the whole boat. They were on the bottom.

“And Lord only knows,” groaned Ross, “how much we’ve taken in! But it’s only three atmospheres, thank God. Here, you,” he commanded to the nerveless Foster, who had again found a seat. “Lend a hand on this pump. I’ll deal with your case when we get up.”

“What must I do?” asked Foster, plaintively, as he turned his face, an ashy green now, toward Ross.

“Pump,” yelled Ross, in his ear. “Pump till you break your back if necessary. Ship that brake.”

He handed Foster his pump-brake, and they shipped them in the hand-pump. But, heave as they might, they could not move it, except in jerks of about an inch. With an old-fashioned force-pump, rusty from disuse, a three-inch outlet, and three atmospheres of pressure, pumping was useless, and they gave it up, even though the girl added her little weight and strength to the task.