It took Robin a minute to see what he meant. Two outriggers had cast off from shore and were sailing toward the Belle Dame. In the lead boat… was Al Capone!
Robin counted quickly. The outriggers held a total of twelve men… all armed killers. The Belle Dame had a crew of eight at the moment, and two were little more than boys. They wouldn’t stand a chance against Capone and his men.
“They must have been waiting near the water,” Mutch said. “We weren’t guarding anything but the city. They saw their chance to escape and took it… and the Belle Dame just happened along at the wrong time.”
Robin felt an electric shock run through his body. “We’ve got to stop them!” he cried. “If they gain control of the riverboat—”
“Get two boats ready,” Little John said. “I’ll fetch some of our boys with guns. It’s not too late. We can still stop Capone.”
Robin and Mutch raced for the water.
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Ten minutes had passed by the time twenty armed men made it to the outriggers from New Chicago. Robin had to stand helplessly and watch as Verne and his men scurried across the Belle Dame, shutting hatches, fastening wooden shutters over the windows, doing anything and everything they could to protect themselves before Capone and his men could board. At last Verne ushered everyone into the pilothouse, slammed the hatch, and (Robin assumed) bolted it closed from the inside. Perhaps Verne would be able to hold out long enough for Robin to save him.
As Capone’s outriggers pulled even with the Belle Dame and the gangster and his men began to climb aboard, a curious thing began to happen. Robin had to blink and rub his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.
The riverboat was sinking.
Or perhaps submerging was the appropriate word, since it didn’t seem to be happening in any way like a disaster: there were no explosions as cold water hit the steam boilers, and the craft was descending evenly, prow and stern simultaneously. The newsreels Robin had seen of ships sinking had always shown them turning tail-up and then vanishing into the depths.
“It’s a submarine, too,” Mutch breathed.
“But the smokestacks…” Robin said.
“Perhaps they stick out of the water at all times,” Mutch said.
“I don’t understand,” Little John said. “Is it sinking or not?”
“It’s not!” Robin let out a relieved laugh. “He’s brilliant! That’s how he knew his ship could never be
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taken by force—he can submerge it whenever he’s attacked!”
“Keep us clear of the riverboat,” Mutch said. “When she goes down, the sudden undertow might be enough to capsize us.”
They circled the Belle Dame from a hundred yards away, watching as she continued to sink. Capone and his men had abandoned their outriggers when they boarded; now they could only climb higher and higher as first one deck, then another fell awash.
At last they stood on the pilothouse’s roof, pounding futilely on the wood with their swords, screaming obscenities at Verne and his infernal riverboat. Then the water covered even the pilothouse, and they found themselves floundering in the river.
“Riverfish…” Little John murmured. “The riverboat has stirred them up.”
“Where?” Mutch asked.
He pointed, and Robin saw them too: four or five dark shapes moving swiftly through the water. In seconds they reached Capone and his men and pulled them under. The water turned bright red.
Robin swallowed and found a lump in his throat. He found he’d been unconsciously rooting for Capone to make it to shore. Devoured by riverfish… that wasn’t a fate he would have wished on anyone, even Al Capone.
Over the next few weeks, things gradually returned to normal in New Chicago. The people went back to their jobs, trials were held for Capone’s men (all were sentenced to five years at hard labor in the mining camps), and Jules Verne himself restored the scientific council, to
continue the press toward new research and the reinvention of all mankind had lost.
Robin and his men were declared Heroes of the City and awarded every honor Jules Verne could think of. Verne himself pinned the Nemo Medal on Robin’s chest in a holiday to celebrate ten days of liberty for the city.
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