They were making progress, but it was slow work. Splicing was no easy task, especially with steel wire. If brand new cables could be run out it would be a much easier proposition; but that was out of the question with the _Nautilus_ on the bottom of the Sound over the coal barge eighty-five feet under water. And there were no diving suits as yet on the _Jules Verne_ for just such emergency cases as these. "Tell them to keep a stout heart," Captain Austin reminded Larry Seymour several times, who was at the telephone and signal booth connecting with the _Nautilus_. Larry in turn reported that he could not always get a reply from below. "Probably they are trying some way to worm their way out," suggested Larry, who was nearly beside himself with worry for his two old pals. Poor old Jay and Dick! They had been such good friends for so long. Was it possible now that some disaster was to overtake them? It was while Larry was thus painfully reviewing the possibilities of the next few minutes that Captain Austin suggested to the boys in the _Nautilus_ that they try and put the time bomb in the coal barge out of commission. Eagerly the would-be rescuers on the _Jules Verne_ awaited developments. "It can't be done now, for we have moved away from the opening in the deck of the barge a yard or so," had been the answer sent up by Jay after the two imprisoned Brighton youths had inspected the barge through the aquascope of the _Nautilus_. Well, the only chance hope of rescue now, it seemed, depended on getting the cables spliced and the winches winding before the bomb was detonated. Like beavers the deckmen of the _Jules Verne_ were exerting themselves. It was a fight for two lives, and the men of the _Jules Verne_ were spending themselves to the limit. "How much time remains?" asked Superintendent Brown after what seemed an eternity of tugging with the torn cables. In turn he was told that less than five minutes remained. By the clock in the chart house of the _Jules Verne_ it was just twenty-six minutes after one. And Jay had sent up word that the bomb was set for one-thirty! As a last resort Captain Austin called for volunteers and asked that they dive from the deck of the _Jules Verne_ as the bomb was exploded in the coal barge and see whether they could find any trace of the two Brighton boys in the water, or learn whether or not the _Nautilus_ had been ripped open wide by the force of the explosion. A half dozen stepped forward, and the captain asked them all to be ready. "Stand by the telephone and try to get them so soon as the explosion goes off, for they may not be hurt at all," were Larry's orders. With receiver glued to his right ear he sat awaiting the crash. Just then the foreman in charge of the cable repairs reported that he could commence to wind in another half minute. "Tell Thacker and Monaghan we are going to raise them now by the cables and to keep a stiff upper lip down there," commanded Austin.