CHAPTER VI Jay Fights for His Life

"WEDDIGEN helping himself to the diamonds!"

Could it be possible that this fellow was a submarine pickpocket who was playing his own little game? Was he a pirate of the deep who pretended to be working for others and all the time seeking covertly to appropriate reclaimed treasure solely for himself? Certainly it appeared so to Jay Thacker as he stood watching the dramatic scene.

The diver determined to see it through without making the other acquainted with the fact that he was being watched. Very quickly Weddigen was working, seemingly on the theory that Jay might arrive on the scene any moment, and that he must lose no time.

Jay noted that Weddigen was slipping something like tiny pebbles into the tiny pocket of his diving suit, letting them in very slowly and patting them down to make sure the currents would not wash them out.

"Diamonds!" gasped Jay, remembering instantly that part of the treasure to be reclaimed from the Dominion was to be diamonds.

The Brighton youth determined to see it through. Crouching back against the side of the areaway he brushed the eyes of his helmet the better to see. Now Weddigen was buttoning over a flap on the pocket!

Between flashes of light Jay could see that the man was working now on the chest. First he battered shut the lid again as best he could. Next he took a coil of chain from his belt and lashed it around the strong box. Then he picked up a long slim crowbar that he had brought along as a push-pole and began to work the chest across the floor of the compartment. He could only move it a few inches at a time because of its weight and the pressure of the water. Slowly but surely, though, he pushed the thing along in front of him.

"He's coming right toward me with it and I might as well make known my presence," reasoned Jay.

He was on the point of flashing on his own light when Weddigen stopped, tossed the crowbar aside and knelt again over the treasure box. For a time he fumbled in the dark while Jay stood wondering what was going on. Again a flash of light, and in that instant the Brighton youth saw that the other diver was making fast on his salvage lines. Beyond a doubt his plan was to send the treasure chest aloft now that he had worked it close to the door of the areaway where it might be yanked up the companionway and thence up through the depths to the deck of the Nemo.

"Going to send the rest of the diamonds up and try to get away with what he has already helped himself to," thought Jay as the daring scheme of his fellow diver was now revealed. But Jay had seen all and was determined so soon as he got back on the Nemo to compel an opening of that cunning little pocket on the side of Weddigen's diving suit.

But now a real danger confronted the Brighton youth. Suppose Weddigen gave the signal for the diamond chest to be raised away? Deckmen aboard the Nemo, when the signal was given, would haul away with all their vigor, eager to perform their part in the salvage of the much desired treasure.

Crouched in the areaway outside the cabin Jay would be directly in the line of the treasure chest as it was yanked away. Suppose that iron box came his way? Perhaps it might crash full into his life lines? One swift blow might sever his air hose and leave him helpless against the inrushing water? Or suppose it cut off his signal lines, leaving him powerless to ask for a lift off the ocean bed?

There was only one thing to do, and that was to get out of there as quickly as possible. Weddigen would not signal for the strong box to be hoisted away until he, too, was out of harm's way; and Jay, now that he had been an eye-witness to the theft, was determined not to let the other know he had seen the theft until they were back on the Nemo again.

As quickly as possible he shuffled along the areaway and began climbing the steps toward the deck of the Dominion. He was just in time, too, for a glimmer of light behind him indicated that Weddigen was following close behind. Rather than reveal his presence Jay fumbled along in the darkness, climbing the steps without resorting to the use of his flash.

Once on deck he turned sharply aft and moved away from the companionway leading below. In his anxiety to make haste he momentarily let go the state room door by which he had steadied himself and in that instant his feet flew from under him. The slimy deck would have been hard enough walking had the Dominion lay on an even keel; but with the pitch to port the half-rotted flooring was difficult walking for the most experienced and careful diver.

As he felt himself going the unfortunate youth grabbed for his life lines for the purpose of signaling the "emergency"; but in the swirl of water he was pitched headlong, the added weight of his own diving accoutrements bearing him along like a leaf in a windstorm. Clear across the wide slanting deck of the Dominion he was hurled until he brought up hard against the rotted deck rail.

Like a drowning man grasping for a straw Jay reached out to clutch the iron post outlined directly in front of him; but as he grabbed its top knob he felt the whole structure rend and twist, its fastenings loosened by the rust of a prolonged submergence. The impact of the young diver's body wrenched it loose and in a moment Jay was hurtled overboard from the inclined deck of the Dominion and enmeshed in a tangle of the collapsed deck railing.

It had all happened so quickly the dazed youth was unable to figure out where he was and what really had happened.

"What a pretty pickle I'm in," was all he could gasp, as he sought to tear himself free from his incumbrances.

And then, to his utter consternation, he found that his air and signal lines had become all entangled in the demolished railing! Sprawling on his back in the soft sand that undulated in a wavy crest against the side of the Dominion he struggled in vain to tear himself free and get to his feet. But, weighed down by his equipment, tired out by his long stay under water and imprisoned in the débris of the Dominion, he found his strength fast slipping.

"I've got to get hold of that emergency line," he said to himself, gritting his teeth and thrashing the water above his head for a hold on the precious life line. Eventually he found it and tugged with all his might, awaiting the welcome pull that would lift him out of the depths.

But no welcome pull came. The life lines were caught in the débris! And now he found himself breathing with difficulty. The air lines, too, had been fouled! The air supply was virtually cut off altogether, and the young diver breathing only the air contained within his diving armor!

"Looks as though I was up against it unless I can work these lines free," the thought flashed through his brain with unrelenting reality. Now, indeed, was he fighting for life against the very fates!

With the desperation born of madness Jay battled to free himself. Caught like a fly in a great spider's web, he knew every moment was precious. Unless those air lines were freed or he got a signal to the surface he was doomed.

Seizing the life lines above his helmet he drew them tight in his hands and followed them along until he came to the first entanglement of iron piping. For a moment the impediment thwarted him, and then he tore it free of the hose lines. But still no relief.

By now his brain was reeling and he could feel the blood vessels standing out on his forehead. A sense of suffocation pressed his heart and lungs and he found his breath coming in short wheezy gasps.

"Can it be that I'm lost!" he cried half aloud, the sound of his voice flooding his own ears like the wail of a siren.

But this was a time for self-control if he was to escape at all the perilous plight into which he had fallen. By sheer force of will he calmed himself and set about again to free himself. Taking the air lines as before he followed them to another point of contact with the débris and slipped down to his knees as he tugged at another joint of the tubing.

Fate, however, was hard and cruel. Try as he did, battling with all his strength and praying fervently as he worked, he was unable to move the obstacle. His fingers felt numb and weak; they refused to respond to his will. Even his legs seemed paralyzed. And again that horrible clutching at the throat and lungs!

"I——guess——I——can't——"

His voice trailed off into a whisper and his brain swam until a panorama of mythical scenes and figures flitted before his fancy. Still clutching the lines of hose that refused him life he reeled and stretched himself helplessly on the floor of the ocean. Dreamily he thought of home, of Brighton, of the service he had lately left. Now he was with the fleet vainly tugging to fasten an obdurate mine in place with other jackies of Uncle Sam's mighty war fleet.

"Now we've got the haughty Germans," he screamed in his delirium. All the while he was gasping and gurgling as his shoulders heaved and his lungs were convulsed in the agony of suffocation. Life was slipping fast away, and life was sweet to this youth who had dared death for his country and come through unscathed in the two years' campaign in the North Sea. By the irony of fate he had lived through all the period of the war only to come home to an untimely death like this while searching for lost treasure!

Now he was floating free in the ocean, a great filmy light suffusing the whole of the green sea, a myriad of soft-clad figures dancing before his glazed eyes, the murmur of some cathedral orchestra intermingled with the song of the sea. Out, out, out through the vast unknown recesses of the sea he drifted, propelled along by some unseen force....

"Something wrong down there!" Dick Monaghan, standing guard over the life lines of his chum aboard the Nemo, sensed the danger of his old Brighton pal. No signal of any kind had come up to him from the depths, and yet he seemed to realize, for some strange reason, that a mishap of some kind had befallen Jay.

"What's that?" called out Captain Austin as he hurried forward to where Dick held the lines over the side of the Nemo.

"I had a hunch of some kind that Jay was in trouble," explained Dick. "I've been trying for the last two or three minutes to get some kind of an answering signal from below, but I can't seem to get him. And there's been such a tugging on the lift lines at times. I don't quite understand it."

"Pump working all right?" asked the captain.

"So far as we can tell, although it seems to have slowed up somewhat," Dick replied, somewhat agitated.

Just then a shout arose from aft the Nemo. The deckmen were hauling something over the side and yelling their heads off with delight.

"Look, a great iron treasure chest," they chorused, as the attention of Captain Austin and Dick was diverted for a moment from the possible plight of Jay Thacker.

True enough, for as they exulted, the iron box containing diamonds that Weddigen had reclaimed from the captain's cabin of the Dominion came over the side, dripping with sediment and seaweed, but firmly held in an encircling chain band.

"Hurrah! Hurrah! we have landed some of the lost cargo." The crew were rejoicing over the big find of the morning, hardly able to contain themselves over the knowledge that a handsome chest of "swag" had been ferreted from its submarine hiding place, and that they would get a fine fat bonus out of the big "divvy."

"Weddigen on his way up," called out the officer in charge of the operations aft.

Only for a moment were Captain Austin and Dick Monaghan deterred from the subject that engrossed their minds. What had become of Jay Thacker?

"Haul him up as fast as you can," the captain commanded.

Jumping to their work, the forward crew began tugging away at the steel cables with which Jay had been suspended. But pull as hard as they could they could not budge the lost diver.

"Quick, men, uncover that deck winch," he ordered, now thoroughly alarmed.

In short order it was made ready for service and the steel cables supporting Jay affixed. A word of command from Captain Austin and the power was turned on. For an instant the cables wound faithfully, and then brought up taut. Something had to give; either the cables had to part, or the contained weight at the sea bottom torn free of its holdings. More power was turned on. A violent tug, and then the winch began winding steadily again!

"Thank God! it's Jay," murmured Dick a minute or so later as the helmeted figure appeared through the haze of the sea green. But the arms and lower limbs hung limp, and portions of the Dominion's deck rail still clung to the suspension cables.

"Hurry, men, there; haul him on deck and pull that armor off," Austin directed.

As the form of Jay was drawn on deck Dick and several assistants tried to stand him on his feet, only to see him crumple and fall like a man of straw. One glance through the eye ports showed closed lids. A twist of the thumb screw and then the helmet was raised.

"Jay! Jay! Speak to me," implored Dick, bending over his chum.