“The Devilfish is submerging again!” Bud cried.
Dansitt’s craft disappeared when it was not more than thirty yards from the shore of Spaniel Island.
“That sub’s berth is under water for sure!” Bud said. “Now what will we do, genius boy?”
Tom failed to answer immediately. He was switching on the periscope’s telescopic lens. Peering at the screen he pointed to the right side of the narrow entrance.
176 TOM SWIFT AND HIS JETMARINE
“Look!” he cried. “There’s part of a wooden barrel drifting with the current into the channel!”
“What are we going to do-get into the barrel?” Bud asked, keeping a straight face.
Tom grinned. “That barrel gave me an idea!”
“What doesn’t give you an idea?” Bud laughed.
“Seriously,” Tom continued, “we’re going to hug the shore and come around that bend just the way the barrel did. Our real hazard will be the rapid current.”
“But how about the mines?” Bud asked. “We’ll be blown to smithereens!”
“We’ll have to be sure we don’t contact them,” Tom replied calmly. “We’ll steer past them.”
“Why don’t we just blow up the mines and go in?” Bud asked. “Dansitt will think we struck one of them and won’t worry about us.”
“He might also think we blew them up intentionally,” Tom countered, “and we’d be depth-charged to a fare-thee-well.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Bud groaned.
“And besides,” Tom added, “we have no way of exploding those mines, anyway.”
“What’s the matter with the ray gun?” Bud asked quickly.
Tom shook his head. “Our gun wouldn’t have any effect on them,” he replied.
“They’re probably contact mines and we’d have to hit them with some kind of a projectile.”