CHAPTER XVII A Dog to the Rescue

EVEN as the crowd of sailors on the Jules Verne cheered, Jay Thacker turned on his back in the waters of Long Island Sound and waved a hearty salute to his friends. Unharmed, he had completely escaped from the Nautilus just a few seconds before the bomb was exploded in the sunken coal barge.

"Jay! Jay! Keep afloat—we'll have you in a minute," yelled Larry Seymour as he crowded to the rail, tears of joy streaming down his face.

"Catch the rope!" Jay heard the cry from the deck of the Jules Verne. Turning he beheld a group of sailors and from their midst one who was ready to cast a line. But even before the line was hurled the figure of another lithe youth poised for a second on the rail and then dived into the water.

"Good boy, Seymour!" came the re-echoing shout. And in the next moment Jay saw the round and puffing face of Larry directly beside him. It was Larry who had dived overboard to the rescue. With a few strokes he was close up and thrust a sturdy shoulder under Jay's shoulders. Jay had turned on his back to rest for a moment.

"Thank God, boy, you got out!" gasped Larry. "Are you hurt? Can you swim?"

Jay replied he was still able to take care of himself.

"Better look for Dick; he must be somewhere around here," was Jay's rejoinder.

But taking no chances, Larry supported his old friend until the line had come over the side of the Jules Verne. When Jay had taken hold and was being yanked aboard Larry turned and swam back in the general direction whence Jay had come, hoping against hope that he would be able to find some trace of Dick. But he was nowhere in sight!

As for Jay, he was given a wonderful welcome when at last he was hauled over the side of the Jules Verne. Eager hands clasped him and landed him in safety at last upon the deck of the vessel.

"Thank heaven, lad, you are safe again—I had almost given up hope of ever seeing you again!" exclaimed Captain Austin as he clasped Jay with a fatherly hug.

"Nor I either," said "Montey" Brown as he, with others who had come out on the trip of the Jules Verne and Nautilus, crowded around.

But Jay was thinking of something else. Dick! Where was his chum, Dick Monaghan? What had happened to him?

"We've got to find him somehow; I am sure that he followed me out of the Nautilus. He said he would follow suit as I prepared to lower away through the aquascope."

Under orders of Captain Austin a small dory was being lowered aft, manned by a trio of sailors who had orders to patrol the waters just forward of the Jules Verne over the spot where the Nautilus had been submerged.

"Let me go along; I've got to find my chum," wailed Jay as he saw the boat going over the side. But friendly hands restrained him. He was in no condition for further effort after his hazardous exploit.

Just then there came a cry from the bridge of the Jules Verne, where a number of visitors had taken their station earlier in the day to watch the demonstration of the new diving craft.

"Look! What's that object floating in the water off the port bow? Not more than three or four points off and about fifty feet ahead."

A gentleman in panama hat and palm beach suit, a representative of a maritime magazine, who had come aboard as a guest of Superintendent Brown, was pointing out over the water.

Immediately all attention was directed that way. Jay had come up out of the depths on the starboard bow of the Jules Verne; so, of one accord, passengers and crew of the vessel surged to the port rail and scanned the waters of the Sound. Jay was one of the first across the deck.

"Where is it? What is it?" he called out excitedly.

The journalist pointed. Every eye followed the general direction indicated by the pointing finger.

"Some object floating in the water. Can't see what it is from here," added the lookout. Several others standing by his side agreed there was something out there in the water.

"It's Dick! It's Dick, my chum!" Jay was in a frenzy and would have leaped overboard to go to the rescue had he not been restrained. Captain Austin by this time had run aft and with megaphone in hand directed the sailors in the dory to row around the stern of the Jules Verne and come up on the port bow of the vessel.

In all this confusion, amid all the babel of voices, there resounded the furious barking of a dog. Fismes, an eye-witness of the rescue of Jay, had become all excited, too, and was giving vent to himself with raucous barking. With canine instinct the animal seemed to sense the situation. And when everyone began pointing in a certain direction over the side, the dog concluded there was something out there demanding attention; something to be retrieved from the water.

It required no word of instruction, no exhortation, to tell this dog what to do. Gathering himself with all his strength, the lean hound leaped from the deck of the Jules Verne directly into the water. No one told him to go; none had an opportunity to hold him in check.

"Fismes! Fismes! Good old dog! Go to it!" screamed Jay in sheer delight.

Almost breathlessly the crowd on the ship watched the dog. As though guided by some uncanny power the dog swam straight and true in the direction of the floating object. Was it the body of a man? Was it the form of Dick Monaghan? The dog knew not; he sensed only the fact that something was floating out there in the water, and it was something that all eyes on board were watching.

"Good dog, Fismes!" they were shouting.

On and on the faithful canine swam with all the strength of his slim legs. And soon he had reached the side of this mysterious object and set his teeth in it. They who were shouting encouragement from the Jules Verne saw all this and marveled at the strength of the animal. They saw him take a firm hold. They saw him stop for an instant. They saw him start to swim again, this time toward the ship—and towing the object along through the water as best he could! Only a dog—but what a wonderful animal! Swimming superbly and maintaining a vise-like grip on the salvaged object.

A mighty shout arose from the deck of the Jules Verne.

"It's Monaghan," came the cry from Superintendent Brown, who had rushed into the wheel-house for a pair of glasses that he might get a closer view of the magnet that had lured the dog into the water.

"Hurrah! it's Dick! Hurrah for Fismes!" screamed Jay in a perfect delirium of joy.

And Dick it was. By this time the rescue boat had arrived alongside and dragged both the inert form of Dick and the wet, tousled dog into the dory. One of the sailors was tugging at the blouse of the rescued diver and feeling for the heart pulse. The other two pulled with all their might for the Jules Verne.

"He's still alive," the sailor shouted as the dory came alongside.

"Thank God for that!" cried Jay as he bent over the rail of the Jules Verne looking down into the face of his chum. The eyes were closed and the body crumpled in an inert mass. But life still remained, and surely the spark that remained could be fanned again into a flame!

Tenderly they took the unconscious Brighton youth aboard. Expert hands began working over him immediately. First the water was drained out of the throat and lungs. Then next the pulmotor was brought into action. Every device known in the resuscitation of the drowned was applied under the direction of Captain Austin.

And in the meantime a lean brown German police dog answering to the name of Fismes was being patted and fêted by an admiring throng!

By and by they who ministered to the unconscious diver were rewarded by a flicker of the eyes and a stirring of the pulses that bespoke the return of life. The pulmotor with its stores of precious oxygen was getting in its effective work. And none watched more solicitously than Jay Thacker as he knelt close beside his old Brighton chum.

"Dick! Dick! Open your eyes. Speak to me," pleaded Jay.

And presently the eyes opened. Just for an instant and then closed again. Slowly but surely respiration became normal again. The splendid physique of the boy who had always taken good care of himself and lived a normal outdoor life was standing him good in the pinch. Where a weakling would have succumbed to such an ordeal the athletic Brighton student who had served his country so faithfully and efficiently in the Navy was pulling through.

After what seemed an eternity to Jay consciousness came back at last to his chum. Opening his eyes Dick gazed first into the face of his old "bunkie."

"It's you, Jay," he mumbled feebly.

"Yes, Dick, old boy, it's Jay," sobbed the latter. The strain had told on Jay. He was about ready to collapse but held himself together by sheer grit. And now he was rewarded, for Dick had been saved. Jay could only throw his arms around Fismes and hug the dog in his delight.

Jay told them all and in turn asked what had happened on the mother ship that had put the air pumps and the engines out of commission. Engineers were still working on repairs, and by now had succeeded in getting the engines working again. But it was some time before the air pumps were working.

In the meantime Dick responded wonderfully to treatment. For a time he was completely bewildered, knowing not what had happened to him, where he was and how he had been brought back again safe on the Jules Verne. But slowly it all came back to him and he was able to tell what had happened to him.

It developed that just as he had lowered away through the trap of the Nautilus to follow Jay in a desperate effort to escape to the surface from the depths the bomb in the coal barge had exploded. Just as he had dipped his head into the water it had gone off. Caught off balance in an awkward position before he had had a chance to dive from the deck of the barge, he had been flung against the steel side of the Nautilus. He had felt the impact, and then he knew nothing more, for the blow had rendered him unconscious.

And then, in turn, Dick heard the story of how his body had been discovered floating in the water, and how Fismes had dived overboard to the rescue, and held his friend safely until a rescue boat picked them both up. Dick's eyes gleamed as he heard of the splendid part played in the rescue by the war dog.

"Where is he?" asked the Brighton boy.

Jay sprang up on deck and came back presently with Fismes, fairly carrying him all the way.

"Here he is," he cried, as he appeared again in Dick's bunk room with the dog.

Old Fismes, wagging his tail and laying his silken ears back by way of recognition, stalked sheepishly across the room and licked the outstretched hand of the youth on the cot.

"I owe my life to you, and I'll guard your life as long as life is spared to me," said Dick as he pulled the nose of the dog over on the counterpane and stroked the still wet head.

"Back to Brighton he goes with us; and he'll be the best mascot the academy ever had," added Jay emphatically.

Dick nodded approval with a smile and sank back on his pillow to rest again, weak from the exertion.

In another hour the repairs had been completed and the Jules Verne was able to move again under her own power. The Nautilus had been raised, but so far there had been no opportunity to determine whether the diving chamber had been damaged.

"But that is small concern, indeed, when we consider the fact that these two brave young divers are safe and sound again after a terrible experience," exclaimed Superintendent Brown as he directed Captain Austin to start back again to Bridgeford.