stirred and moved uneasily as Nat examined his wound.
“Let me be!” he muttered peevishly; “lemme be.”
“That’s just what I’m not going to do,” rejoined Nat cheerfully.
On the wall of the engine room was a tap leading from the drinking water tanks of the craft. Nat saturated his handkerchief under this faucet and bathed Ding-dong’s wound. Then he applied the water plentifully to the lad’s face, and, opening his shirt, doused him with it.
Under this treatment, the unconscious lad sat up and opened his eyes.
“Hullo, Nat!” he exclaimed, like one awakening from a long sleep. “What’s up? What on earth has happened? Where are we? What makes it so hot?”
As usual, under strong excitement, Ding-dong forgot to stutter, as Joe termed it.
“I can only answer two of your questions,” replied Nat. “‘What’s up’ is that poor Joe is lying senseless on the bridge. He was washed overboard in that chasm. You’ve got to try to help me get him to the cabin. ‘What on earth has happened,’ is this: We have, apparently, passed through the chasm, and the islands have vanished in some mysterious fashion, although we can’t be far from where they were. The sea all about us is boiling hot, and I guess we are in the very core of some strange volcanic disturbance or other.”
“Cc-c-c-crickets!” sputtered Ding-dong, rising dizzily but pluckily to his feet, “we do seem to run into some mighty queer adventures, don’t we? Come on. I’ll give you a hand with poor old Joe. But, by the way, what have you been doing all this time?”
“Oh, I-I-guess I went to sleep for a while, too,” responded Nat, rather confusedly, and without mentioning his heroic rescue of Joe from the waters of the rift.
He was spared answering further questions, for it required their united strength to carry Joe to the cabin. Ordinarily, this would not have been so, but the heat was so terrific that it had sapped the strength of both boys till they had but half of their accustomed energy and vim.
Joe was laid on a locker and restoratives applied. Presently he was able to sit up, and then out came the story of Nat’s rescue. The lad colored brilliantly as Joe and Ding-dong both poured out their praise unstintedly.
“But, say,” exclaimed Joe, rubbing his head and looking suddenly bewildered, “I’ve got an awful bump here. I guess I must have hit my head before your brave – ”
“I hit it for you to keep you quiet,” burst out Nat; “and if you don’t shut up now, I’ll bust it again.”
Going on deck, the three lads found that it had grown lighter. But the water still boiled about them furiously. Clouds of sulphurous steam arose from it, making them cough and choke.
In the brighter light they had quite an extensive view of their surroundings. But, of the islands, not a trace appeared. They had vanished as if they had been the fabric of a dream.
“By George! I have it!” cried Joe suddenly. “Those islands were of volcanic origin. Didn’t you notice how bare and bleak they were? I’ll bet that in this disturbance, whatever it is, they have subsided as suddenly as they arose.”
“Such cases are not uncommon,” rejoined Nat. “Only last year, Captain Rose, of the missionary schooner Galilee, of San Francisco, reported seeing an island of some extent arise and then vanish again before his very eyes.”
“W-w-w-well,” sputtered Ding-dong, with a grin and a return to his old manner, “w-w-w-we can r-r-r-report the same thing; but as t-t-this isn’t a go-go-gospel schooner maybe nobody w-w-w-will believe us.”
“My suggestion is, that we get the engines going and get out of this without delay,” said Nat.
“Here, too,” agreed Joe Hartley. “There’s nothing to hang about here for.”
An examination of the engines showed that, in falling, Ding-dong had shut off the gasolene supply valve, and had thus stopped the motors. This was soon remedied and the motors set going again. As the Nomad cut her way through the boiling sea where lately the twin islands had stood, they all felt like raising a fervent prayer of thanks to Providence for their wonderful deliverance.
“I’ve often heard of such things on the Pacific, but I never expected to live through one,” was Nat’s comment.
“Nor I,” was Joe’s rejoinder; “and I don’t know that I should care to repeat the experience. But hullo!” he broke off suddenly, “what’s that? No, not over there; off this way!”
He pointed excitedly to a small black object, which, in the now clear atmosphere, was visible at the distance of about a mile to the southeast of them.
“It’s a boat,” announced Nat, after a brief scrutiny of the strange object.
CHAPTER IV.
PROFESSOR GRIGG AND MR. TUBBS
“So it is. What on earth can it be doing out here? Wait a jiffy, I’ll go below and get the glasses.”
Joe, now fully recovered, dived into the after cabin and soon reappeared with a pair of powerful binoculars.
Nat focused them on the distant object, which, by this time, was visible, even to the naked eye, and reported it to be a small boat, painted white, and looking like a ship’s dinghy, or small lifeboat.
Excitement ran high on board the Nomad when Nat proclaimed that he was almost certain he had seen an arm wave from the small craft.
“I couldn’t be quite sure, though,” he admitted. “Here, Joe, you take a look.”
The chubby-faced Joe now bent the glasses on the object of their scrutiny.
He gazed intently for a minute, and then uttered a shout.
“By ginger, Nat, you’re right!” he exclaimed. “There is someone on board. There must be something the matter with them, though, for they seem to be collapsed in a kind of bundle on the thwarts.”
“We must make all speed to their aid,” said Nat, signaling for more power. “Poor fellows, if they have been adrift in all that flare-up, they must be about dead.”
“I should say so,” agreed Joe.
As they neared the boat, Nat began blowing long blasts on the electric whistle, to let the occupants know that aid was at hand. In response, a figure upreared itself in the drifting craft, waved feebly once or twice, and then subsided in a limp-looking heap.
“I reckon we’re only just about in time,” said Nat grimly, coaxing another knot out of the Nomad.
As they drew alongside the boat, they saw that not one but two persons occupied it. The one who had signaled them from a distance proved to be a short, stocky little man, with a crop of brilliant red hair and a pair of twinkling blue eyes. The merry flash in those optics had not been dulled, even by the terrible ordeal through which, it was apparent, he and his companion had passed.
“Hullo, shipmates! Glad to see you!” he chirruped, grinning up at the boys on the bridge with a look of intense good humor.
His white duck clothes were scorched, and his rubicund hair, on close inspection, proved to be singed,
