"Wait."
"What on? They've got us locked in."
"Which is probably fortunate for us," Doc pointed out. "We can hardly take over the ship, even if we whipped the whole gang. And they're slightly too many for us. We'll wait for well, anything."
"But what about Monk, Long Tom, and Johnny?"
Fully a minute ticked away before Doc answered.
"We shall have to take the chance that they'll be kept alive as long as I'm living provided they haven't been eliminated already."
"I don't think they have been killed," Ham said optimistically. "Tom Too is smart. He knows his three prisoners will be the price of his life should he fall into our hands. He won't throw away such a valuable prize."
"My thought, too," Doc admitted.
Mindoro was moved to put a delicate question. Perhaps the strain under which he was laboring made him blunt, for he ordinarily would have couched the query in the most diplomatic phraseology, or not have asked it at all.
"Would you turn Tom Too loose to save your friends?" he quizzed.
Doc's reply came with rapping swiftness.
"I'd turn the devil loose to save those three men!" He was silent the space of a dozen heartbeats, then added: "And you can be sure that when they joined me, they'd turn around and catch the devil again."
The others were silent. Mindoro wished he hadn't asked the question. There was something terrible about the depth of concern the big bronze man felt over the safety of his three friends a concern which had hardly showed in his manner, but which was apparent here in the darkness of the hold, where they could not see him, but only hear his vibrant voice.
Minutes passed, swiftly at first, then slowly. They dragged into hours.
THE engines finally stopped. A rumble came from forward.
"The anchor dropping!" Doc declared.
"Any idea where we are?" Ham wanted to know.
"We've about had time to reach the harbor of Mantilla."
The four men listened. The great liner whispered with faint sound, noises too vague for Ham, Renny, and Mindoro to identify. But Doc's highly tuned ears, his greater powers of concentration, fathomed the meaning of the murmurings.
"They're lowering the boats."
"But this craft was supposed to tie up at the wharf in Mantilla," said Mindoro.
Silence fell. They continued to strain their eardrums until they crackled protest.
This continued fully half an hour.
"The liner anchored in about seventy feet of water," Doc stated.
"How can you tell?" Ham asked surprised.
"By the approximate number of anchor-chain links that went overboard. If you had listened carefully, you'd have noted each link made a jar as it went through the hawse hole.
Ham grinned. He had not thought of that. He gave their flashlight a fresh wind. This light used no battery, current being supplied by a spring-driven generator within the handle.
"Things have sort of quieted down," murmured Renny, who had been sitting with an ear pressed to a bulkhead.
Mounting the metal ladder to the hold hatch, he struck the lid fiercely with his fist. Bullets instantly rattled against it. A few, driven by rifles, came inside. Renny descended hastily.
"They haven't gone off and left us!" he grunted, "What d'you reckon they're planning to do?" Ham questioned.
"Nothing pleasant, you may be assured," said Mindoro.
Mindoro's nerve was holding up. He showed none of the hysteria which comes of terror. His voice was not even unduly strained.
Faint sounds could now be heard on the deck immediately above. Wrack their ears as they might, Doc and his men could not tell what was happening.
"They're doing something!" Renny muttered, and that was as near as they came to solving the mystery.
The sounds ceased.
Mindoro's anxiety moved him to speak. "Hadn't we better do something?"
"Let them make the first move," Doc replied. "We're in a position down here to cope with any emergency."
Mindoro had his doubts; it looked to him as if they were merely trapped. But Ham and Renny understood what Doc meant in Doc's baggage there was probably paraphernalia to meet any hostile gesture the pirates might make.
"This waiting gets in my hair!" Renny thumped. "I wish something would happen! Anything "
Whur-r-room!
The hull of the liner jumped inward, shoved by a monster sheet of flame and expanding gases.
The Orientals had lowered dynamite overside and exploded it below the water line!
TRUNKS and valises were shoveled to the opposite side of the hold by the blast. Fortunately the liner hull absorbed much of the explosion force.
Doc and his three companions extricated themselves from the mess of baggage.
A wall of water poured through the rent in the hull. It scooted across the hold floor. A moaning, swirling flood, it rose rapidly.
Instinct sent Ham, Renny and Mindoro to the ladder that led to the deck hatch. They mounted.
"We can blow open the hatch with a grenade!" Ham clipped.
"Not so fast!" Doc called from below. "You can bet the pirates will be standing by with machine guns. They'll let you have a flock of lead the minute you show outside!"
A second explosion sounded, jarring the whole liner. This one occurred back near the stern.
"They're sinking the boat!" Mindoro shouted. "We'll be trapped in here!"
In his perturbation, he decided to ignore Doc's warning. He started on up the ladder to the hatch. But Renny flung up a big hand and held him back.
"Doc has got something up his sleeve!" Renny grunted, "so don't worry!"
Down in the hold, water sloshing to his waist, Doc was plucking out the contents of another of his trunks. He turned his flashlight on his three companions, then flung something tip to them. He followed it with another a third.
Renny caught the first, passed it up to Mindoro, and rumbled: "Put it on!"
The objects consisted of helmetlike hoods which fitted over the entire head and snugged with draw strings around the neck. They were equipped with gogglelike windows.
They were compact little diving hoods. Air for breathing was taken care of by artificial lungs carried in small back packs. Respiration was through a flexible hose and a mouthpiece-nose-clip contrivance inside the mask.
There were also lead bracelets fitting around their ankles, and heavy enough to keep their feet down.
Renny assisted Mindoro to don the diving hood, then put one on himself. Ham's sharply cut, hawklike face disappeared in another; he took a fresh grasp on his sword came and waited.
Doc, his bronze head already enveloped in one of the hoods, was delving into other of his trunks, and making bundles of objects which he removed.
The generator-operated flashlights were waterproof. They furnished a pale luminance in the rushing, greasy floor that rapidly filled the hold.
THE liner sank. The boilers aft let go with hollow explosions. Water whirled a maelstrom in the hold, tumbling the four men and the numerous pieces of baggage about.
Water pressure increased as the vessel sought the depths. But at seventy feet it was not dangerous. With a surprisingly gentle jar, the Malay Queen settled on the bottom.
Locating etch other by the glowing flashlights, the four men got together. Each carried a light.
Doc had four bundles ready one for each man.
Thanks to the water-tight hoods, it was not necessary to keep the mouthpiece of the air hose between their lips at all times. By jamming their heads together, they could talk.
"Each of you carry one of these bundles," Doc directed. "We'll leave by the hole their dynamite opened provided the ship is not resting so the sand has closed it."
The hole was open. They clambered through, using care that razor edges of the torn hull did not perforate the waterproof hoods.
The depths were chocolate-colored with mud raised by the sinking Malay Queen. The men joined hands to prevent being lost from each other. Doc leading, they churned through soft mud, away from the ill-fated liner. They were forced to lean far over, as though breasting a stiff gale, to make progress.