Appleton, Victor – Tom Swift Jr 02 – And His Jetmarine

178 TOM SWIFT AND HIS JETMARINE

message we got from Uncle Ned, this may be his last day here. And if my father and Mr. Foster are on the island, they may be in just as dangerous a situation. I can’t let them down, Bud.”

“Don’t pay any more attention to me,” said Bud. “I was only making small talk!”

Suddenly his eye caught sight of mounds of fresh debris lying along the bottom.

“Tom!” Bud called. “They’ve recently blasted and dredged this channel!” He was about to tell Tom why he knew this when the submarine reached the entrance. “Hard right!” he cried. “We’re at the corner!”

The sharp current fairly pulled the bow of the Sea Dart around the turn. As the craft straightened into her 90� thrust into the channel, Tom gave her quarter speed for a moment and steered the submarine even harder against the channel bank. In here, too, the rock walls went straight down.

“I see a mine!” Bud cried.

The words sent a chill down Tom’s spine.

“Where is it?” he called.

“About ten feet to the left of our bow!” Bud called back.

Tom held the rudder fast. The right side of the submarine hull scraped slightly on the rock as the current sucked it farther and farther into the lair of the pirates.

“We missed it-by inches!” Bud murmured thankfully.

He took a deep breath and continued staring through the nose of the bow.

Dead ahead, about fif-

“I see a mine,” Bud cried

180 TOM SWIFT AND HIS JETMARINE

teen feet, there loomed the ominous black spherical shape of another mine.

“Come left-hard!” Bud called in terror.

Tom gunned the jet and swung the rudder. Bud could see the black horns of the deadly mine as the bow eased past it.