"
The Englishman made no reply, but began moving around among the
machinery with the crowbar. Leonard stirred himself to follow.
"You--you're not up to anything--not going to blow us up?"
"No, I'm not going to blow you up. That's my word."
Oddly enough, Madden accepted it very simply, and went back and sat on
the torpedo case. He fell to stroking the smooth steel flank of the
thing as if it were some animal. The thing had, as it were, refused to
blow him to bits at Smith's request.
The Englishman walked about busily, thrusting his bar in among dial
connections, snapping brass pipes, wrecking the telephone connections.
He laid about him viciously, knocking, crashing, smashing. Then he
hurried back into the rear compartment, knocked to pieces the bearings
and valves of the Deisel engine, tangled up the wiring of the storage
batteries and the dynamo, beat off her brushes, disrupted the clutch on
the crank shaft.
It was shocking to Madden to see Caradoc smash and destroy such delicate
and costly machinery. He went about his task with a kind of bottled
ferocity, and in a short time the submarine looked as if it had let
loose a cyclone. Presently the youth paused in his vandalism and glanced
about with satisfaction.
"All right," he said in a more normal tone, "if you are ready to go, get
a wrench and a cold-chisel, smudge your face with a little oil and iron
black, and we'll get away from here.
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