no danger
but they would get out all right. For five or six minutes, which seemed
an hour to the men thus caught in a trap, they tried every possible way
to get the machinery to work; but it was useless. The boat refused to
rise. The oxygen became rapidly exhausted and the lights grew dim. Even
the valve supplying fresh air for the nostrils of the occupants of the
boat would not work and the situation grew more desperate with the
flight of every second. As the atmosphere became oppressively heavy,
Boyton wanted to knock the valve off with a hammer; but the engineer
showed him if that were done, they would be drowned.

It began to dawn on the minds of the three men that they were doomed.
They sat and looked into one another's pale faces. Paul consulted his
watch and estimated that twelve more minutes must elapse before those
above would haul up. He felt that it would be impossible for them to
last so long for already they were beginning to gasp for lack of air.
They became weak; but again tried the valves to no purpose. The least
exertion exhausted them. One of the lanterns flickered out and the other
was very dim.

At last Paul seized a hammer and going up the little iron ladder, struck
three or four blows on the cover of the man-hole, under the impression
that those above might hear. The effort was too much for him and he fell
to the floor where he laid in an almost unconscious condition. He
dimly remembered hearing the straining of chains, then the man-hole was
opened and a voice inquired: "How is it?"

There was no answer to the inquiry and the rescuers only found out how
it was when they entered the boat and dragged the three unconscious men
out to light and air where they quickly recovered. The inventor of the
boat made an examination of her machinery and found that the valves had
been tampered with and rendered useless. It was fortunate that Boyton
had taken the precaution of swinging the boat to chains, for otherwise
they would have died like rats in a trap and remained in their iron
coffin at the bottom of the bay.

The inventor went to Lima to report the occurrence and that night Boyton
received a message warning him to keep a sharp look out as there was a
Chilean spy among the crew and it was he who had tampered with the
valves. At midnight two officers arrived from the capitol and the crew
was summoned before them. They had an accurate description of the spy
and after close scrutiny