and——

But this gloomy train of reflections was interrupted. In the distance Matt could see a glow of light, shining hazily through the fog. Was it the search light of the Grampus, or a gleam from the other boat?

Divided between hopes and doubts, he waited and watched. The glow presently resolved itself into a pencil of light, and he became fairly positive that it was the searching eye of the submarine.

"Ahoy!" he shouted.

Instantly a distant commotion struck on his ears.

"Ahoy, ahoy!" came an excited answer. "Is that you, Matt?"

"Yes. Shift your wheel a couple of points to starboard and you'll be heading straight for me. Come slow—and don't run me down."

The gleam of light suddenly shifted its position. Aiming directly at Matt, it grew brighter and brighter. Matt was able to make out the dark outlines of the submarine's low deck and conning tower, and to see three figures well forward toward the bow, all clinging to guys and leaning out over the water.

"Are you swimming, old ship?" came the tense voice of Dick Ferral.

"Hardly," Matt answered. "I've been in the water for upward of an hour—and I couldn't have fought the current that long if I had been compelled to swim."

"How you vas keeping off der pottom, Matt?" piped up the relieved voice of Carl.

"There's a sort of a raft under me," Matt laughed.

"A raft? Where the dickens did you get hold of a raft, Matt?"

This was Glennie.

"Not exactly a raft," went on Matt, "but a Whitehead torpedo. We met each other at just the right time for me. I'm riding the torpedo, and it's a fine thing for keeping a fellow afloat."

Startled expressions came from those on the submarine. By then the Grampus was so close that her search light had Matt and the Whitehead in full glare. The amazement of the boys on the submarine increased.

"Dot's der plamedest t'ing vat I efer heardt oof!" gasped Carl. "Modor Matt riding on a dorpeto schust like it vas a tree, oder somet'ing like dot! Ach, himmelblitzen!"

Speake guided the Grampus alongside the torpedo.

"Be careful, Speake!" warned Glennie. "If that infernal machine bunts into us, we're gone."

"I'm looking out for that," answered Speake.

"You don't need to worry," called Matt reassuringly. "I wasn't going to take chances with two hundred pounds of high explosive, and one of the first things I did was to fix the priming pin so it wouldn't work."

The Grampus, responding to a signal flashed into the motor room, came to a halt. Dick threw Matt a rope, and he began tying it to one of the loops that encircled the shell of the torpedo.

"Why are you making fast, matey?" inquired Dick.

"Because I want to tow this torpedo into Lota," answered Matt.

"Oh, bother that! Here we've been all ahoo thinking you were at the bottom and as good as done for. Now that we've found you again—and in a most amazing way, at that—cut loose from that steel tube and come aboard. What's the use of fussing with it?"

"I'll explain when I come aboard," Matt went on. "Make the other end of the line fast, Dick, and give the cable a scope of fifty feet. I've hooked to her so that she will follow us stern foremost."

Glennie helped Dick make the cable fast; then Matt, drawing in on the line, came alongside the rounded deck plates, and Carl helped him off the torpedo.

"Ach, vat a habbiness!" sputtered Carl. "I hat gifen you oop for deadt, Matt, und vat shouldt I efer have done mitoudt my bard? How you come to be like dot, hey?"

"There's something mighty mysterious about it," said Matt. "I thought I heard a noise somewhere in the darkness behind the Grampus, and stepped aft to watch and listen; then, before I knew what was up, the noose of a rope fell over my head and tightened about my throat. I went into the water with hardly a splash, unable to give a cry for help."

"I didn't hear a sound!" put in Speake excitedly.

"It was all done so quickly and silently, I don't see how you could have known anything about it, Speake," said Matt. "I was in a bad way when I sighted that torpedo. I got astride of it, started the propellers, and rode in the direction the Grampus had taken. When the compressed air gave out, I was expecting to be picked up by some other boat—by the boat that had fired the torpedo at us."

"At us!" exclaimed Glennie. "Do you mean to say that torpedo that saved you was launched at the Grampus?"

"Exactly," returned Matt. "It was the torpedo Dick, Carl, and I saw, and which I thought might be a floating log or a piece of wreckage."

This astounding intelligence almost carried Matt's chums off their feet.

"What enemies have we in these waters?" cried the startled Glennie.

"Why," answered Matt, "who but the Sons of the Rising Sun?"

CHAPTER IV.

WEIGHING THE EVIDENCE.

"Let's go below, mates," suggested Dick, "and overhaul all this. There's meat in it for us, and it will stand us in hand to get at it."

"I'll not go below this night, Dick," said Matt, "and we'd better all of us stay on deck and keep our eyes peeled for Japs. Carl can go and bring me up some dry clothes, an extra pair of shoes and stockings, and an extra coat."

"Dot's me, bard," chirruped Carl, making for the conning tower.

"Get the boat on her proper course, Speake," said Matt; "we must get out of this neighborhood as soon as we can—and as quick as we can. Watch the torpedo as we come about, Dick, you and Glennie. See that the cable doesn't foul the guys or the periscope mast."

Speake signaled for a fresh start, and as the submarine described a circle and pointed the other way, Dick and Glennie kept the hawser clear. The torpedo took its scope of cable, and the drag of it was plainly felt as soon as the submarine began to pull.

"It's main lucky, mates," remarked Dick, as Carl regained the deck with Matt's dry clothing, and the young motorist began to get out of his wet togs, "that we've such a smooth sea. If the wind was blowing hard and the water was choppy, Matt would have a hard time with that torpedo of his."

"A lucky thing, too," added Glennie, "that there's a thick fog. If Matt's enemies had seen him, they'd have finished the work they set out to do with that lariat."

"On the other hand, Glennie," put in Matt, "we don't want to forget that it was the fog that enabled them to come so close. Their boat must have got within seventy-five feet of the Grampus in order for any one to drop that noose over my head."

"I'll be keelhauled if I can understand how such a trick was done," said Dick. "From my experiences on the cattle ranges of Texas, I should say that a seventy-five-foot cast with a riata is a mighty big one, and liable to be successful about once in a hundred times. But here's this swab that lassoed Matt, snaring him the first crack—and throwing from a boat's deck and across water, at that!"

"Then, too," proceeded Glennie, "their boat has less noise to it than any craft I ever heard of. It shoved along within seventy-five feet of us—and none of us heard a sound!"

"I thought I heard a noise, Glennie," returned Matt, "and that was what took me aft."

"I can't understand how it was done," muttered the ensign.

"Veil, anyvays," struck in Carl, "id vas done, no madder vedder anypody oondershtands it or nod. Kevit making some guesses aboudt der vay it vas pulled off und look der pitzness skevare in der face. It vas der Chaps—who else vould dry to plow der Grampus oudt oof water? So vat's to be done aboudt it?"

"Carl's talking sense, fellows," said Matt. "Those Japs are against us. We thought we had left them behind, and that we should be able to reach San Francisco before they could make us any trouble, but here they are, going for us harder than ever."