The Tom Swift Megapack

by Victor Appleton

  “Yes, you certainly did it,” said Tom, and due credit was given to Koku.

  “Never again will I travel without a gyroscope,” declared Tom. “I’m almost ready to go back and have one installed now.”

  “No, don’t!” exclaimed the gold-seeker. “We are almost at the place of the wreck.”

  “Well, I suppose we can travel more slowly and not run a risk like that again,” decided Tom. “I’ll put double valves on the emergency air tank, so no accident will release our supply again.”

  This was done, after the broken valves had been repaired, and then, when the machine Koku had torn loose was fastened down again, and the submarine restored to her former condition, a consultation was held as to what the next step should be.

  They were in the neighborhood of the West Indies, and another day, or perhaps less, of travel would bring them approximately to the place where the Pandora had foundered. The latitude and longitude had been computed, and then, with air tanks filled, with batteries fully charged, and everything possible done to insure success, the craft was sent on the last leg of her journey.

  For two days they made progress, sometimes on the surface, and again submerged, and, finally, on the second noon, when the sun had been “shot,” Tom said:

  “Well, we’re here!”

  “You mean at the place of the wreck?” asked Mr. Hardley.

  “At the place where you say it was,” corrected Tom.

  “Well, if this is the place of which I gave you the longitude and latitude, then it’s down below here, somewhere,” and the gold-seeker pointed to the surface of the sea. It was a calm day and the ocean was the proverbial mill pond.

  “Let’s go down and try our luck,” suggested Tom.

  The orders were given, the tanks filled, the rudders set, and, with hatches closed, the M. N. 1 submerged. Then, with the powerful searchlight aglow, the search was begun. Moving along only a few feet above the floor of the ocean, those in the submarine peered from the glass windows for a sight of the sunken Pandora.

  All the rest of that day they cruised about below the surface. Then they moved in ever widening circles. Evening came, and the wreck had not been found. The search was kept up all night, since darkness and daylight were alike to those in the undersea craft.

  But when three days had passed and the Pandora had not been seen, nor any signs of her, there was a feeling of something like dismay.

  “Where is it?” demanded Mr. Hardley. “I don’t see why we haven’t found it! Where is that wreck?” and he looked sharply at Tom Swift.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  A SEPARATION

  “Mr. Hardley,” began Tom calmly, as he took a seat in the main cabin, “when we started this search I told you that hunting for something on the bottom of the sea was not like locating a building at the intersection of two streets.”

  “Well, what if you did?” snapped the gold-seeker. “You’re supposed to do the navigating, not I! You said if I gave you the latitude and longitude, down to seconds, as well as degrees and minutes, which I have done, that you could bring your submarine to that exact point.”

  “I said that, and I have done it,” declared Tom. “When we computed our position the other day we were at the exact location you gave me as being the spot where the Pandora foundered.”

  “Then why isn’t she here?” demanded the unpleasant adventurer. “We went down to the bottom at the exact spot, and we’ve been cruising around it ever since, but there isn’t a sign of the wreck. Why is it?”

  “I’m trying to explain,” replied Tom, endeavoring to keep his temper. “As I said, finding a place on the open sea is not like going to the intersection of two streets. There everything is in plain sight. But here our vision is limited, even with my big searchlight. And being a few feet out of the way, as one is bound to be in making nautical calculations, makes a lot of difference. We may have been close to the wreck, but may have missed it by a few yards.”

  “Then what’s to be done?” asked Mr. Hardley.

  “Keep on searching,” Tom answered. “We have plenty of food and supplies. I came out equipped for a long voyage, and I’m not discouraged yet. Another thing. The ship may have moved on several fathoms, or even a mile or two, after her last position was taken before she went down. In that case she’d be all the harder to find. And even granting that she sank where you think she did, the ocean currents since then may have shifted her. Or she may be covered by sand.”

  “Covered by sand!” exclaimed the gold-seeker.

  “Yes,” replied Tom. “The bottom of the ocean is always changing and shifting. Storms produce changes in currents, and currents wash the sand on the bottom in different directions. So that a wreck which may have been exposed at one time may be covered a day or so later. We’ll have to keep on searching. I’m not ready to give up.”

  “Maybe not. But I am!” snapped out Mr. Hardley.

  “What do you mean?” asked the young inventor.

  “Just what I said,” was the quick answer. “I’m not going to stay down here, cruising about without knowing where I’m going. It looks to me as if you were hunting for a needle in a haystack.”

  “That’s just about what we are doing,” and Tom tried to speak good-naturedly.

  “Then do you know what I think?” the gold-seeker fairly shot forth.

  “Not exactly,” Tom replied.

  “I think that you don’t understand your business, Swift!” was the instant retort. “You pretend to be a navigator, or have men who are, and yet when I give you simple and explicit directions for finding a sunken wreck you can’t do it, and you cruise all around looking for it like a dog that has lost the scent! You don’t know your business, in my estimation!”

  “Well, you are entitled to your opinion, of course,” agreed Tom, and both Mr. Damon and Ned were surprised to see him so calm. “I admit we haven’t found the wreck, and may not, for some time.”

  “Then why don’t you admit you’re incompetent?” cried Mr. Hardley.

  “I don’t see why I should,” said Tom, still keeping calm. “But since you feel that way about it, I think the best thing for us to do is to separate.”

  “What do you mean?” stormed the other.

  “I mean that I will set you ashore at the nearest place, and that all arrangements between us are at an end.”

  “All right then! Do it! Do it!” cried Mr. Hardley, shaking his fist, but at no one in particular. “I’m through with you! But this is your own decision. You broke the contract—I didn’t, and I’ll not pay a cent toward the expenses of this trip, Swift! Mark my words! I won’t pay a cent! I’ll claim the money I deposited in the bank, and I won’t pay a cent!”

  “I’m not asking you to!” returned Tom, with a smile that showed how he had himself in command. “You put up a bond, secured by a deposit, to insure your share of the expenses—yours and Mr. Damon’s. Very well, we’ll consider that bond canceled. I won’t charge you a cent for this trip. But, mark this, Hardley: What I find from now on, is my own! You don’t share in it!”

  “You mean that—”

  “I mean that if I discover the wreck of the Pandora and take the gold from her, that it is all my own. I will share it with Mr. Damon, provided he remains with me—”

  “Bless my silk hat, Tom, of course I’ll stay with you!” broke in the eccentric man.

  “But you don’t share with me,” went on the young inventor, looking sternly at the gold-seeker. “What I find is my own!”

  “All right—have it that way!” snapped the adventurer. “Set me ashore as soon as you can—the sooner the better. I’m sick of the way you do business!”

  “Nothing like being honest!” murmured Ned. But, as a matter of fact, he was glad the separation had come. There had been a strain ever since Hardley came aboard. Mr. Damon, too, looked relieved, though a trifle worried. He had considerable at stake, and he stood to lose the money he had invested with Dixwell Hardley.

  “This is final,” announced T
om. “If we separate we separate for good, and I’m on my own. And I warn you I’ll do my best to discover that wreck, and I’ll keep what I find.”

  “Much good may it do you!” sneered the other. “Perhaps two can play that game.”

  No one paid much attention to his words then, but later they were recalled with significance.

  “Get ready to go up!” Tom called the order to the engine room.

  “Where are you going to land me?” asked Mr. Hardley. “I have a right to know that?”

  “Yes,” conceded Tom, “you have. I’ll tell you in a moment.”

  He consulted a chart, made a few calculations and then spoke.

  “I shall land you at St. Thomas,” answered the young inventor. “I do not wish to bring my submarine to a place that is too public, as too many questions may be asked. From St. Thomas you can easily reach Porto Rico, and from there you can go anywhere you wish.”

  “Very well,” murmured the malcontent. “But I don’t consider that I owe you a cent, and I’m not going to pay you.”

  “I wouldn’t take your money,” Tom answered. “And don’t forget what I said—that what I find is my own.”

  The other answered nothing. Nor from then on did he hold much conversation with Tom or any others in the party. He kept to himself, and a day later he was landed, at night, at a dock, and if he said “good-bye” or wished Tom and his friends a safe voyage, they did not hear him.

  They were steaming along on the surface the next day, and at noon the submarine suddenly halted.

  “What’s on now, Tom?” asked Ned, as he saw his chum prepare to go up on deck with some of the craft’s officers.

  “We’re going to ‘shoot the sun’ again,” was the answer. “I want to make sure that we were right in our former calculations as to the position of the Pandora. The least error would throw us off.”

  Using the sextant and other apparatus, some of which Tom had invented himself, the exact position of the submarine was calculated. As the last figure was set down and compared with their previous location, one of the men who had been doing the computing gave an exclamation.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Tom.

  “Look!” was the answer, and he pointed to the paper. “There’s where a mistake was made before. We were at least two miles off our course.”

  “You don’t say so!” exclaimed Tom, and, taking the sheet, he went rapidly over the results.

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE SERPENT WEED

  All waited eagerly for Tom Swift to verify the statement of the other mathematician, and the young inventor was not long in doing this, for he had what is commonly known as a “good head for figures.”

  “Yes, I see the mistake,” said Tom. “The wrong logarithm was taken, and of course that threw out all the calculations. I should say we were nearer three miles off our supposed location than two miles.”

  “Does that mean,” asked Mr. Damon, “that we began a search for the wreck of the Pandora three miles from the place Hardley told us she was.”

  “That’s about it,” Tom said. “No wonder we couldn’t find her.”

  “What are you going to do?” Ned wanted to know.

  “Get to the right spot as soon as possible and begin the search there,” Tom answered. “You see, before we submerged as nearly as possible at the place where we thought the Pandora might be on the ocean bottom. From there we began making circles under the sea, enlarging the diameter each circuit.

  “That didn’t bring us anywhere, as you all know. Now we will start our series of circles with a different point as the center. It will bring us over an entirely different territory of the ocean floor.”

  “Just a moment,” said Ned, as the conference was about to break up. “Is it possible, Tom, that in our first circling that we covered any of the ground which we may cover now? I mean will the new circles we propose making coincide at any place with the previous ones?”

  “They won’t exactly coincide,” answered the young inventor. “You can’t make circles coincide unless you use the same center and the same radius each time. But the two series of circles will intersect at certain places.”

  “I guess intersect is the word I wanted,” admitted Ned.

  “What’s the idea?” Tom wanted to know.

  “I’m thinking of Hardley,” answered his chum. “He might assert that we purposely went to the wrong location with him to begin the search, and if we afterward find the wreck and the gold, he may claim a share.”

  “Not much he won’t!” cried Tom.

  “Bless my check book, I should say not!” exclaimed Mr. Damon.

  “Hardley broke off relations with us of his own volition,” said Tom. “He ‘breached the contract,’ as the lawyers say. It was his own doing.

  “He has put me to considerable expense and trouble, not to say danger. He was aware of that, and yet he refused to pay his share. He accused me of incompetence. Very well. That presuggested that I must have made an error, and it was on that assumption that he said I did not know my business. Instead of giving me a chance to correct the error, which he declared I had made, he quit—cold. Now he is entitled to no further consideration.

  “An error was made—there’s no question of that. We are going to correct it, and we may find the gold. If we do I shall feel I have a legal and moral right to take all of it I can get. Mr. Hardley, to use a comprehensive, but perhaps not very elegant expression, may go fish for his share.”

  “That’s right!” asserted Mr. Damon.

  “I guess you’re right, Tom,” declared Ned. “There’s only one more thing to be considered.”

  “What’s that?” asked the young inventor.

  “Why, Hardley himself may find out in some way that we were barking up the wrong tree, so to speak. That is, learn we started at the wrong nautical point. He may get up another expedition to come and search for the gold and—”

  “Well, he has that right and privilege,” said Tom coolly. “But I don’t believe he will. Anyhow, if he does, we have the same chance, and a better one than he has. We’re right here, almost on the ground, you might say, or we shall be in half an hour. Then we’ll begin our search. If he beats us to it, that can’t be helped, and we’ll be as fair to him as he was to us. This treasure, as I understand it, is available to whoever first finds it, now that the real owners, whoever they were, have given it up.”

  “I guess you’re right there,” said Mr. Damon. “I’m no sea lawyer, but I believe that in this case finding is keeping.”

  “And there isn’t one chance in a hundred that Hardley can get another submarine here to start the search,” went on Tom. “Of course it’s possible, but not very probable.”

  “He might get an ordinary diving outfit and try,” Ned suggested.

  “Not many ordinary divers would take a chance going down in the open sea to the depth the Pandora is supposed to lie,” Tom said. “But, with all that, we have the advantage of being on the ground, and I’m going to make use of that advantage right away.”

  He gave orders at once for the M. N. 1 to proceed, and this she did on the surface. It was decided to steam along on the open sea until the exact nautical position desired was reached. This position was the same Mr. Hardley had indicated, but that position was not before attained, owing to an error in the calculations.

  As all know, to get to a certain point on the surface of the ocean, where there is no land to give location, a navigator has to depend on mathematical calculations. The earth’s surface is divided by imaginary lines. The lines drawn from the north to the south poles are called meridians of longitude. They are marked in degrees, and indicate distance east or west of the meridian of, say, Greenwich, England, which is taken as one of the centers. The degrees are further divided into minutes and seconds, each minute being a sixtieth of a degree and each second, naturally, the sixtieth of a minute.

  Now, if a navigator had to depend only on the meridian lines indicating distance east and west, he might be
almost any distance north or south of where he wanted to go. So the earth is further divided into sections by other imaginary lines called parallels of latitude. As all know, these indicate the distance north or south of the middle line, or the equator. The equator goes around the earth at the middle, so to speak, running from east to west, or from west to east, according as it is looked at. The meridian of Greenwich may be regarded as a sort of half equator, running half way around the earth in exactly the opposite direction, or from north to south.

  The place where any two of these imaginary lines, crossing at right angles, meet may be exactly determined by the science of navigation. It is a complicated and difficult science, but by calculating the distance of the sun above the horizon, sometimes by views of stars, by knowing the speed of the ship, and by having the exact astronomical time at hand, shown on an accurate chronometer, the exact position of a ship at any hour may be determined.

  By this means, if a navigator wants to get to a place where two certain lines cross, indicating an exact spot in the ocean, he is able to do so. He can tell for instance when he has reached the place where the seventy-second degree of longitude, west from Greenwich, meets and crossed the twentieth parallel of latitude. This spot is just off the northern coast of Haiti. Other positions are likewise determined.

  It was after about an hour of rather slow progress on the surface of the calm sea, no excess speed being used for fear of over-running the mark, that Tom and his associates gathered on deck again to make another calculation.

  Long and carefully they worked out their position, and when, at last, the figures had been checked and checked again, to obviate the chance of another error, the young inventor exclaimed:

  “Well, we’re here!”

  “Really?” cried Ned.

  “No doubt of it,” said his chum.

  “Bless my doormat!” cried Mr. Damon. “And do you mean to say, Tom Swift, that if we submerge now we’ll be exactly where the Pandora lies, a wreck on the floor of the ocean.