Like some weird specter in a motion picture drama Dick beheld the spectacle at his feet. First he saw Jay's head under the water; then he saw his chum flatten out under the bottom of the _Nautilus_, and as he looked again he could faintly make out Jay's feet as they faded away from the darker expanse of the barge deck below. Jay had cleared the _Nautilus_ safely. "Here goes, too," gasped Dick to himself as he leaped through the aquascope. Almost instinctively as he let go, his eyes lifted to the tiny marine clock in its basket-like cage. Right on the half hour mark showed the minute hand. With a last frantic gasp for breath Dick pulled himself down into the embrace of water. Down out of the _Nautilus_ into the embrace of water and into such close proximity with that infernal coal bomb! "If I can only hurl myself--quickly--to--one--side--before----" Just then the bomb exploded with a frightful force that rent the waters of the Sound in that particular locality with the force of an earthquake. In the midst of this maelstrom were the two Brighton youths who had taken a last desperate chance when it seemed they were doomed to die like rats in a trap. What--Where----!!! * * * * * Up on the deck of the _Jules Verne_ there was the maddest confusion. It had maintained for nearly half an hour, since the chief engineer had first reported trouble from below. Frantically, members of the crew were endeavoring to make the necessary repairs. In the meantime, every one knew by now of the perilous position of the two Brighton boys who had been working for some time in the _Nautilus_. "My God, man, we've got to get those boys up somehow!" raved Superintendent Brown as he paced the deck. Captain Austin, his face tense with anxiety, was directing the knot of men who were endeavoring to string up again a set of cables that ran down along the access tube and connected under the _Nautilus_. Fortunately, the captain had seen the break coming just before the steel parted and the severed ends had been held before they had dropped overboard. Watch in hand, Captain Austin was keeping tabs on the time limit until the bomb in the coal barge was scheduled to go off. Eagerly the captain had scanned the bay in every direction for some other vessel that might stand by and give them help. But not a craft showed anywhere close, not even a sailboat. Unfortunately, the _Jules Verne_ had not as yet been fitted out with wireless, and there was, consequently, no way to communicate ashore or with any other vessel. "How are you coming, boys, on those cables?" Superintendent "Montey" Brown kept inquiring every minute or so of the repair crew.