“Yes,” nodded Benson, quickly.  “This was his work.  Get me free from this stanchion, won’t you?”

Despite his elaborate effort at calmness Hal Hastings shook so that it was some seconds before he could get his knife from a pocket.

“Wait till I steady down,” Hal muttered, grimly.  “I’m afraid of stabbing you.”

At last, however, Hastings controlled his right hand enough to feel safe in slashing the cords.  Jack, weak-kneed, stepped away from the stanchion, though he was still handcuffed.

“Thanks, old fellow.  That’s enough for the moment,” said Jack, whose face was still ashen gray.  “Miss Desmond—­”

Both boys wheeled together to speak to that splendid young woman.  They paused with their lips open.  Grace Desmond could not have heard them; she had fainted, lying inert across one of the seats.

“She’s a brick—­a wonder—­clean grit,” broke from Jack, softly, admiringly.

When Josh Owen saw Hal drop through the manhole, and then saw the submarine’s dive arrested, he realized that it was time for instant flight.  Yet, as he turned to dash away, he found himself confronting the muzzle of a revolver held by the night watchman, who had been outside the yard at a little distance, but whom Josh’s firing had brought back on the run.

“Throw up your hands, Owen.  You’re my prisoner,” said the watchman, crisply.

But the ex-foreman much preferred being shot to taken.  Flourishing his weapon, he turned, making a dash for the street gate.

Then it was that the foreman fired the two shots heard by the young people on the “Pollard.”

Both shots missed.  Thereupon, the watchman lowered his weapon and dashed after the fugitive.

Eph Somers, coming down the street to go aboard, heard, the shots.

“Me for a high roost, if there’s trouble,” uttered Somers, dryly.  He climbed the fence, close to the gate.  An instant later Josh Owen darted out.  As he passed, Eph, with a fine eye, measured the time, and dropped fairly a-straddle of the fleeing one’s shoulders.

“Whoa, you big draft-horse!” chuckled Eph, holding on to Owen’s head for grim life.  Under the weight and the unexpected shock the ex-foreman sank to the sidewalk.

Had the night watchman continued the chase they would have had Josh Owen then and there.  But the watchman, knowing that he was a poor sprinter, and that Josh was a fast one, turned, just inside the gate, to rush to the telephone and notify the constable.

So Josh, on his hands and knees, after he recovered from his first astonishment, found he had only Eph to fight.  Young Somers was all grit when aroused, nor was he lacking in muscle.  But he was no match for Josh.  There was a brief, heated contest.  Then Eph, dizzy from a blow in the chest that winded him, staggered back.  Owen swiftly vanished in the darkness, but Eph, when he got to his feet again, clutched the empty revolver that he had twisted from Owen’s hand.