"It's a bad do!" the latter said when he came up and looked at Dan, bending over him and feeling his pulse and then counting his breathing. "Hard hit, as you say, Larry, but he's young and strong and ain't taken to liquor; if anyone can pull through it's Dan. Only, he's got to get every chance, which means that the sooner we've got him out of here the better. Let's carry him, boys; later on we'll hunt out this German."

"Later on?" said Jim, who had now recovered a little from the shock which Dan's condition had caused him. "No, Mr. Sheriff, I'm going on at once, there's no time to be lost, for when it gets dark a fellow's chance for creeping out of the mine will be enormously improved. I'm going to hunt him down and either shoot or capture him, which it don't matter."

"Same here," declared Larry, "same here, Mr. Sheriff; now's the time, as Jim says. We've winged our man, and chances are he's bled quite a heap and will be weak like and more easily taken. If we wait till to-morrow he may have got away or got his arm tied up, and be in better shape to meet us. Now's the time. You pull out, Mr. Sheriff, with Dan, for the boy's life depends on it; me and Jim's goin' forward."

They parted, the Sheriff and his men to pick Dan up with every care and bear him along as gently as they could to the entrance; there he was put in a car and hurried down to the mining hospital below, where, in case of casualties occurring, the surgeon was already in attendance.

"Hum!" he said; "a close call, Mr. Sheriff. I don't know! I don't know! Indeed," he continued, shaking his head as he bent over Dan's almost lifeless figure and put his stethoscope to his chest, "slick through—small-calibre bullet, and not over-much bleeding. Missed the heart by two or three inches, which is lucky. Well, it might have been worse, Mr. Sheriff, it might have caught him right through the heart, or that bullet might have lodged in his lung and set up no end of trouble in the future. If he lives for a few days, he will pull round. You and your men get off now and leave Dan to me and the nurses; but——" he shook his head again, "but, Mr. Sheriff, don't count on anything wonderful."

Meanwhile, Jim and Larry had pushed on resolutely into the darkness of the tunnel.

"Hold hard!" said Jim after a while, when they had crawled some distance and had listened on many occasions, only to hear nothing which told them of the near presence of the man they were seeking.

To be sure, there came to their ears the steady dripping of water as it splashed into the inky-black pools on the floor of the tunnel, and now and again a distant echo which reverberated gently along the whole length of the gallery.

"It's the Sheriff talking in that big voice of his to the men in the opening," Larry explained. "This here tunnel's like a speaking-tube. Well, what is it, Jim?"

"I've been thinking. This is like hunting for a needle in a bundle of hay. We've nothing to go on, Larry, except sounds, and they're uncertain; it seems to me that we must pursue a different course."

"A different course?" asked his companion, a little astonished. "How? which way?"

"I don't mean in direction; I mean course of action. See here," said Jim, "you've winged the German."

"Winged!" said Larry, his tones now those of disgust. "If I was worth a cent with a gun I'd have drilled a hole clean through him. I could 'a done, Jim. Ef you was to put up a dollar at ten paces distant, end ways on, I'd hit it slick ten times out of ten, and I ain't boastin' now——" he ended, with a low hiss of annoyance.

"Everyone knows what you can do, Larry," Jim told him. For indeed Larry's prowess with a revolver was known throughout the mine.

"If you couldn't shoot straight you wouldn't have been able to hit his arm; for you've told us you meant only to wound him. Of course I understand that you wish now that you'd killed him, for then Dan might not have fallen, but you've winged him and probably he's bleeding. Perhaps if we use our torches, we shall be able to follow a trail if by chance he's left one."

The suggestion cannot be described as one of any brilliance, for indeed it was so very obvious; yet in the excitement of the chase it had not occurred to either of them before, and now the prospect it offered caused Larry to grip Jim by the shoulder eagerly.

"It's it! Gee," he whispered excitedly, "ef it don't offer the only chance! And then?"

"And then," said Jim, "if we get on his trail we shoot off our lights and go forward say twenty yards and pick it up again. In that way, sooner or later, we may get him cornered. He'll shoot."

"Aye, he'll shoot," agreed Larry, "and we'll chance that, Jim. Only, if the chance comes, you can lay it that we'll flatten out our man with one of these bullets. Pity you ain't armed, Jim, you ought to 'a had a gun along with you; but you ain't fearful."

"Fearful! Let's move on. Now search the ground with your light."

It was not until ten minutes or more had passed that the two as they crept along the floor of the gallery came upon a patch brighter than that they had been traversing, and here on the wall, about three feet from the floor, there was the impression of a hand—a blood-stained impression. For the outline of the fingers and the palm of a man's hand were imprinted upon the stone in a brilliant red—sure sign that the German had gone in that direction.

"And here's his boot-mark in the mud at the foot of the wall," said Larry, pointing it out to Jim, "and right here's another and another. He was going along this way. See, here, Jim," he whispered, putting his lips close to the ear of the young fellow who was his companion, "ef it was me alone as was leading this expedition, I'd turn off me light here and get ready with the feet. I'd move along quick, say a hundred yards or more, and then lie low and listen."

"Same as I was going to suggest," Jim answered. "Come on, let's hold hands so that we don't get separated; and after this, not a word, not a sound!"

Hurrying forward, they stopped again when they thought they had covered the distance agreed upon, and then sat down with their backs against the wall of the gallery, listening and waiting. It was some ten minutes later that the faintest whisper of a sound was heard, a whisper which appeared to be approaching them, although that was a matter for conjecture. They listened intently till both were certain that someone was approaching them, though whether in the gallery in which they themselves were waiting, or in some other of the numerous burrows which honeycombed the mountain, was a matter they could only guess at. Then, of a sudden, they became aware of the fact that whoever gave rise to the sound was very near them. Almost instantly they switched on their lights, and just as rapidly one of them went out, while at the same moment Larry gave vent to a shrill exclamation, and a flash of flame on the far side of the gallery and a loud report accompanied the cry he gave.

When Jim contrived to turn his own torch on the point where the flame of a pistol-shot had illuminated the darkness, the tunnel was bare, there was not a sign of anyone, though rapidly moving away were the sounds of retreating footsteps. By his side lay Larry, groaning and muttering and growling.

"Guess that there fox has managed to do us in again," he managed to tell Jim. "You lay hold o' me, young fellow, and carry me under yer arm. I'm only a small bit of a chap, and of no great account, but, Gee, if I get hold o' that chap! If I ever gets square face to face o' that feller!"

It was indeed a sorry finish to what might have been quite an exhilarating affair. Undoubtedly the German had got the better of the bargain. In some uncanny manner, indeed, he had contrived to hoodwink all his pursuers, and late that night was clever enough to slip out of one of the exits and escape from the mountain. All that could be heard of him after that was that he had managed to reach the Pacific coast, and had taken ship no doubt for Germany. One clue he left: a photograph of himself, which was found in his lodgings. Below the portrait the man's signature was scrawled in a calligraphy decorated with many flourishes.

"Perhaps we'll see him over t'other side," said Larry, a few days later. "Guess we'll find no difficulty in recognizing that ugly mug wherever we come across it."

"And I just hope that happy meeting 'll come along pretty quick," agreed Jim. "As soon as you are fit to move we'll get off there and make tracks."

"Aye, aye, make tracks!" cried Larry, for they had talked the matter over and decided to leave for France at the very first opportunity. "Our chaps will be trained over this side," Larry had said, "but that's too slow a job for me. Reckon a man as can shoot same as I can, and same as you, will be useful over yonder. Pity Dan can't come."

Dan couldn't, and indeed would hardly be fitted for the duties of a soldier for many months to come, for the German's bullet had wounded him severely. But his place was taken almost at once by English Bill, a mere stripling.

"Son o' Charlie, down in the saloon in the camp," he told Jim. "You see, mother's an English-born woman; father came over here seven years ago, leaving me and mother to follow. I've been here just a year."

"Just a year!" repeated Larry, looking the stripling over. "And what may be your age, young feller? Yer size and yer cheek, don't yer know, make yer out to be a good twenty; yer face, and what-not, says that yer barely eighteen."

"Seventeen this last fall—old enough to come along o' you and do something to them Germans," came the quick answer. "I can shoot, too, Larry. You ain't the only one that knows how to hold a gun. Father taught me. Besides, didn't this low-down hound murder him? Wasn't he a German agent? Hasn't England been fighting Germany this last three years? What's the good of me here then? I've something to do in France, same as you have. I'll come right along."

And come right along English Bill did, stripling though he was, and made quite an excellent companion for Jim and Larry. Indeed the three of them were to meet with many adventures before they reached France itself, and there, with British and French and American troops round them, were to see quite a deal of fighting.

CHAPTER IV "En Route" for Europe

It was three weeks after the affair of the copper mine and the runaway German, and of the murder of Charlie by this unscrupulous agent of the Kaiser, that Jim and Larry and the juvenile English Bill—William John Harkness—made definite plans for their departure.

"Yer see," said Larry, as he stood, hands thrust deep into the capacious pockets of his trousers, his head tilted forward, and his cap over his brows, "yer see, young feller, it ain't been possible before to get a move on. There's been—there's been things to do," he said rather lamely, a little diffidently.

"Huh!" Jim merely nodded and looked a little askance at Bill, who, like many a youngster, coloured as his deeper feelings were stirred.

"Yep," he blurted out a minute later, though the two of them saw him gulp. "Yep," he repeated, aping the speech of Larry; for Larry and Jim seemed to this young English lad personalities to be envied, admired, and copied. "There's been things! The burial of Father, for instance, the winding up of affairs."

"Aye," grunted Larry, "the winding up of affairs, and yours have been important, Bill."

Jim nodded, and again the young fellow beside them flushed. Indeed, the winding up of his personal affairs had been to him, if not to the others, quite a big concern, which, coming very fortunately for him immediately after the death and burial of a father whom he admired and respected and cared for deeply, had helped to distract his grief from the loss he had suffered.

Curiously enough, it turned out that Charlie, the bar tender, was by no means bereft of this world's goods. It should be noted that bar tending in America is a highly-thought-of occupation, controlled by its own particular Union, demanding high wages, and the best of surroundings and conditions. Add to this that Charlie, popular with all with whom he came in contact, was a man possessed of no small intellect, and one can gather good reasons for his becoming affluent.

"A man can work quite contented at what seems a subordinate job, young Will," he told his only son soon after he had joined him from England. "I don't mind saying I could give up this work to-morrow if need be, and live perhaps at ease like what's sometimes called a 'gentleman' back in England. But I ain't the one for living at ease. Work's what I like, and plenty of it, so long as it's congenial; and here it's that all the time. And mark you this, lad, I'm a teetotaller, though I do serve drinks over a bar, often enough to rude miners. But I was sayin', a chap don't need to leave his work if he likes it, and working behind a bar don't prevent me from making a way in other directions. There's mining shares to be bought by the chap that's saved; and I've bought 'em. If yer mother had lived, she could have gone back to England and aped the lady. There's been ranch shares to buy, and them too I've taken a liking to, and done well with 'em. Think it out, me boy, a man thrifty and careful, and who works steadily most every day and most hours of the day, will have dollars to spare to put into work that other men are doing; and so it goes on till one day he turns round and finds that he's got quite a tidy sum tucked away to cover the time when he's too old for working."

It was that "tidy sum" that Larry referred to when he said that English Bill had had "affairs" to clear up, and it was those "affairs" and the attorney to whom Jim introduced him that distracted Bill's attention from the loss he had suffered, taking his mind from the gruesome act of that rascally German and forcing him to concentrate on other more humane affairs. Now everything was cleared up, the estate of the murdered Charles was either sold already or being sold, the money was banked, and there was no longer any need for Bill to be in attendance. As for Jim, he was satisfied that Dan was progressing, slowly, perhaps, but surely.

"Though he won't be fit for months yet," the doctor told him. "As it is, he's had as narrow an escape as you could imagine, and it'll be months before he's able to run about, which means that it will be months before he finds his way to France to take part in smashing that villain of a Kaiser. Aye, villain!" he cried, bringing a fist down with a bang on the edge of the operating-table. "D'you think we over here don't know? Haven't I friends, American doctors, that have been over in England these months past, who joined up to help the British Medical Service? Haven't they been in France? Aren't there friends of mine who have been working for months in the French hospitals? And what's their tale?"

If Jim had waited to hear the whole tale—for the doctor was notoriously garrulous—he would have heard much that he had already read, and would certainly have gathered some new information: news of shattered villages, of smashed châteaux, of a country ravaged wherever the Hun could reach it, of the Cathedral of Reims levelled almost, of poisoned gas projected at French and British, of dastardly acts in all directions, of the bombing of towns and villages, and the slaughtering of women and innocents. But Jim knew a lot about it himself. It had not required the dastardly act of that German who murdered Charlie to rouse him to a state of indignation, to make him swear to leave for France at the earliest possible opportunity. He had read of the ravaging of Belgium; he too knew something of the diabolical acts of the Germans to their British and French prisoners. Besides, it did not want a very wise man to realize that the German was no ordinary combatant. He had not hesitated to break every rule of warfare. Was not one of his infractions of the general usages his new, widely proclaimed intention to torpedo and submarine every ship afloat, whether it carried women and children, or whether only merchandise?

Jim knew his own mind, like thousands and thousands of other Americans. He had only waited the word of the President of the United States. That word was spoken, and nothing now could hold him back, after the personal experience he had so recently met with.

"Guess we can board the train to-morrow," said Larry, pushing his head a little farther forward and looking at Bill in such a truculent way that one would have thought that he meant to be pugnacious.

"Yep—the 5.45 out," came the answer. "Bags packed; got some dollars in my pocket, with a draft on a bank at Noo York."

"And then?" asked Jim, for, though the three had made up their minds to leave for France together, they had not yet discussed the details of their journey. It didn't seem to matter, in fact, so long as they did reach France, and at the earliest possible moment.

"And then?"

"Oh, and then? Yep," said Larry, opening his lips, shutting his eyes, and then grinning inanely at the two of them.

"Yep," he repeated, and looked hard at Jim.

"Yep," said Bill, looking in the same direction.

"And then—oh!—and then," said Jim, scratching his head, "well, let's get there," he added in the most practical voice. "The train will take us there without any bother, and once on the spot we'll be nearer the coast—on the water, as you might say—and could really get a move on about sailing."

See them then on the cars en route from Salt Lake City, via the Canyon, to New York, where, in the course of four days, they put in an appearance.

"First thing is to fix up quarters," said Larry as he jingled a few cents in his pockets. "Time was when I come to Noo York and gone to the best hotel. That was in good times, Jim, when I was out for a holiday and didn't mind spending. But this is business; we're on a different jaunt altogether now. Say now, we'll make right down for the docks."

Taking their "grips" (hand-bags) with them—for, like many an American, the three travelled very light, and (porters not being in evidence at the stations as they are in England) were therefore not in any difficulty—they found their way to the cars (tram-cars) which plough in all directions through the old and new portions of this premier city of America, where once the Dutch held play, and where in their turn the British dispossessed them. Presently they were down in the docking area, with warehouses about them, the masts of huge ships projecting into the air—amongst them not a few which were German. Larry jerked a somewhat dirty thumb in that direction.

"There's the Vaterland and what-not yonder," he grinned. "Ships nigh thirty or more thousand tons, what the Kaiser built to beat creation on the water. Guess they'll be American soon, if they ain't already."

"Not yet," replied the critical Jim, "though in effect they do belong to the country. I was reading in the news last night that Uncle Sam has put a guard upon each of the ships belonging to Germany, and that the crews which have lived on them all these months since the war began in Europe have been sent ashore. Pity is that in the meanwhile they've damaged the engines, though our workmen will soon make that good. And—who knows?—in a few months' time they'll be taking American soldiers to France to teach the Kaiser his lesson."

To Larry and Jim the sights they saw all along the waterside were novel, for, though Larry had been to New York before, and indeed had travelled quite a considerable amount in America, the water-side had never attracted him, but now that he was likely to embark for France, ships and all that passed on the ocean were a source of interest to him. To English Bill—young Bill as they sometimes called him—the sight was a common one.

"There'll be ships and ships going across," he told his two companions. "Store-ships filled with food, some for the Belgians, who are nigh starving, other store-ships with food for Britain, because, you see, being an island with a big population, she cannot very well feed them all. Besides, as folks told me before I came out, she has these many years devoted herself to manufacturing all sorts of articles. She's allowed her land to go under grass, and hasn't been growing the crops that once she used to produce. There's the Argentina, there's America, there are the wide wheatfields of Canada to supply her."

"Or were," Jim said laconically, "or were, young Bill."

"Aye," agreed Larry, with a puff of the lips, "and will be yet, Jim. You are thinking of submarines. Well, it'll take all the submarines that the Kaiser's got, and a heap more, to keep America from sending food to our British allies. But you was talkin' about ships, Bill. What then?"

"There's others full of ammunition—ammunition made in American factories—going over to be fired by British and French guns. There'll be steamers and sailing vessels. Seems to me that, as not one of us three knows one end of a ship from the other, we'd better keep away from sailing vessels. There would be jobs, perhaps, aboard one of the steamers, and we might manage to get taken on."

"You! Take you on!" said a huge upstanding figure with a ruddy face, whose curly locks protruded from beneath the blue sailor cap he was wearing. "You!" he laughed, almost scornfully, and yet with a kindly note, as he stood over English Bill and peered down at this smiling youngster. "Think as we've got jobs for such as you aboard our vessel!"

Then he laughed outright, and clapped a huge hand on Bill's shoulder.

"You'll be English," he said.

"Aye. English Bill, we call him," Larry interjected.

"British!" Bill fired out, "same as these here two, only they're American."

"American, of course," the huge sailor responded, looking a little puzzled. "But British? How?"

"He means," said Jim, with one of his pleasant smiles, "that America's allied with Britain and France and all the rest of the Entente against the Kaiser and his barbarians, so that we are all one and the same—all friends, all fighting for the identical cause. Besides, Bill and we two are chums, so it don't matter whether you call us all three Americans or all three British. I ain't ashamed of being one or the other after seeing the way Britons have shown up, have come forward by the million, have fought the Hun in France and many another place. After that, why, who's going to be ashamed of being mistaken for a Briton? Not me, eh, Larry?"

"Nor me neither," jerked the latter, his head thrust forward as was his wont, his cap tilted at a most dangerous angle, his eyes screwed up, peering at the big sailor. "See here," he said, "I like yer look, stranger. Yer come from aboard that ship, do yer?"

"I do," the man admitted, and then laughed uproariously. "You three just take it! And what may be yer wants? This 'ere youngster you've called English Bill has asked for a job. Well, there may be a job—two or three of 'em; only what for? What's your game? There's talk of America adopting conscription, eh?" and he looked a little slyly at them—a little sharply at Larry and Jim, whereat the former actually scowled and then smiled.

"I know what you're thinking of, but it's natural. Down at the mines, if a chap had said that to me, most likely there would have been shooting. You are right, though. There has been men elsewhere, perhaps, that has tried to escape their national duty by slipping away from their country. Well, stranger, just listen to this. We three are bound for France. We're in a hurry to join up and get a slap in at the Germans."

Thereupon they sat down on the quay-side and told their story, to which the big sailor listened intently, sometimes scowling, then nodding his head in evident approval.

"Tom's my name," he said, when the yarn was finished—"Tom Burgan, but Tom'll be good enough for you young fellows; and let me say I like yer spirit. It was a pity, though, that you didn't nail that Heinrich. I should say that he was an enemy agent. There are lots of 'em in America, as you people must know by now, seeing the way there have been fires at works which have been manufacturing munitions for us Britons. What do they call that, eh?"

"Sabotage," said Jim.

"Aye, something of that sort," agreed Tom. "'Sabitarge,' let's call it. Dirty work, whatever you calls it. Pity is, I say, that this Heinrich escaped, 'cause he's free to carry on the same sort of work elsewhere. And he shot young Bill's father, did he? And he was a good man, eh?"

Bill's lips twitched; they always did when his father was referred to.

"A good man, Tom!" he ejaculated; "there never was a better."

"And proudly spoken, too. Happy's the man that knows that his son will say that of him. Well, let's hope you'll meet this German again; only, look out for squalls if you do. As for the search you made for him, it must have been tricky business in that mine. It must have been nervy sort of work seeking for him in those dark passages. And now you're looking for more trouble. That don't surprise me. Every man that's the proper age—and the younger and more active he is, the sooner he seeks it—seeks for something over in France, on the high seas, or elsewhere, some job that he can do to put a spoke in the wheel of the German Emperor dominating the world. Well, he flooded the sea with his submarines to keep all ships from sailing. Ho, ho, ho!" laughed Tom uproariously, disdainfully, and the trio who listened to him joined in heartily. "But come aboard; we'll go and see the old man."

"Old man?" said Jim.

"Aye, old man," Tom repeated, winking at Bill, who evidently understood the meaning of the words he had employed.

"Old man?" said Larry, a puzzled look on his face. "See here, Tom, and no offence meant, I don't want to be serving under no old man."

"You come aboard," said Tom, gripping him by the shoulder and lifting Larry to his feet as if he were a child or a doll or some quite inconsiderable person. "The old man's my skipper. 'Old man' stands for skipper in the navy. You'll find him young enough even for your liking. Step aboard."

"Af'noon, sir," he said, addressing a dapper, clean-shaven, nautical individual who at that moment emerged from a companion and stepped on the deck before them. "Here's three who wants to make for France to fight the Germans. There's three jobs goin' aboard, for you're short of your complement by that and more. How'll they do? This 'ere lad's English to his toe-nails."

"Oh!" The nautical individual looked Bill up and down in that swift way that officers have, and seemed to take in every tiny feature. "To his toe-nails," he tittered, for Tom was quite a character aboard the ship, and could take certain liberties with his officers.

"Aye, sir," repeated Bill, liking his look, "from the hair of my head to the soles of my feet, and these two are Americans, just as much American as I am British."

"And what can you do?" asked the Skipper, for it was he undoubtedly. "This young fellow," and he pointed to Jim, "looks strong and steady, and could do almost any job aboard. Young Bill, here, will fit in almost anywhere, but you——" and he pointed a finger at the diminutive Larry. Even to be unusually kind to him and a little flattering, Larry, with his small attenuated figure, his ill-fitting clothes, his absurdly big head, and his somewhat buccaneering appearance, was anything but an attractive object, and certainly looked as though he were hardly capable of strenuous work. "But you——" repeated the Skipper; "now I have my doubts!"

It was like Larry to fire up at once.

"Doubts! See here, Old Man," he growled.

Whereat Jim put out a restraining hand, and Tom, enjoying the joke, roared heartily.

"He can do a day's hard work with anyone, yep," said Jim; "and if you was to get into any sort of trouble this here Larry would be a good man: he can shoot, he can. When we're out at sea he'll give you a show, and if it's a case of hitting a dollar at ten yards or of perforating a tin that's thrown in the air, why Larry's your man. And he ain't so fierce as he looks, nor so delicate neither."

The upshot of the whole thing was that then and there the three were taken on as hands aboard the vessel, for indeed it was hard to obtain full crews just at that period. A day later the ship cast off her mooring, backed into the Hudson River, and, swinging round with the assistance of a tug, was soon steering out towards the ocean. Little did Bill and his friends dream, as they looked back and watched New York disappear, and the banks of the beautiful Hudson River sink into the distance, that their voyage to Europe and to France would prove as eventful, even more so, as had been their last few weeks at the copper mine, where the German had put in an appearance.

A peaceful voyage was denied them, first, because the weather was unpropitious. A hurricane faced them as they gained the ocean, and for four or five days the vessel whirled amongst the waves, huge masses of spray bursting over her forecastle, while her decks heaved and tossed in a manner which tried even Tom and older sailors. As for Bill and Jim and Larry, all the fight was knocked out of them.

"I'd rather die!" groaned Larry, after many hours had passed, as he lay prostrated in his bunk. "Here, you, Tom!" he said feebly, "take me up and shy me overboard. I'd like to drown."

"You'll just sit up and swallow this 'ere 'ot cup o' stuff," the sailor told him, roughly gripping him with that huge hand of his; "now open yer face and take it in. No lyin' down again, neither; up yer get! Move up and down! Now you, Jim! Bill's already feelin' better—youngsters do. How's that, Larry? It's made yer feel good and warm inside. What?—you won't? Oh, won't yer?"

And Larry did in most obedient manner. Indeed Tom's friendly treatment soon brought him round, so that, as the gale abated, all three were already proving useful. It was then, or a little later, that events occurred to disturb the remainder of the voyage.

CHAPTER V A German Agent

"I've been thinking," said Bill, on the fifth evening after the three friends had left New York on their journey to Europe.

"Aye," said Larry in his slow way. "Thinking of what, Bill?"

"Wonder," said Bill, "what a man would want out here in the middle of the ocean to be slinking along the deck at night as if he was afraid of meeting people."

Jim and Larry looked at him in some astonishment, a little puzzled to know what he meant.

"A man slinking along at night out here?—Where?—on this vessel?" asked Jim.

"Yep," came the abrupt answer. "What 'ud he want to do? Who'd he be afraid of meeting?"

"Meeting?" said Larry. "Is this one of the crew? Course he must be, though, 'cos there ain't anyone else aboard the ship; we ain't carryin' passengers. What do a man want to be slinkin' along at night-time for, Jim? It was at night-time, wasn't it, Bill?"

"Yep," again came the curt answer.

"And what else did he do?" asked Jim, beginning to get interested. "Tell us all about it."

"I was on watch," said Bill, "and Tom had sent me down from the fo'c'sle to the waist to get him a drink of water. The ship was rolling about fairly well, and so I had to hang on to a stanchion as I was crossing. I was just by the donkey engine when I saw a man on the far side passing me. He was hanging on too, going along almost on all-fours."

"Yes, yes," said Jim, "looks as though he was afraid of falling, same as you were. Perhaps he's a new hand, same as us, only——"

"Not that," said Bill sharply. "Someone shouted an order just then from the bridge, which was above us; the man squeezed himself in close to the donkey engine, and I could see him turn his face to look up at the bridge. He lay there two or three minutes and then slunk off. At the far end he disappeared, and I went on my errand. I did not think much of it then, but I have been thinking since. It was queer."

It was so queer that, after discussing the matter, the three decided to set a watch to see whether they could gather further information, and that night once more as Jim and Bill, who lay together in the waist, were about to return to their bunks, inclined to pooh-pooh the importance of the whole incident, a man's figure appeared, dimly seen under the light shed by the thin crescent of the moon, a man who slunk across the deck, sheltering behind the engine, the mast, and the hatchway. Then he was gone, only to reappear a little later, and then disappear once more just after an order had been called from the bridge and the man on watch on the forecastle had responded to the hail.

"It's mighty queer," said Larry when the three were closeted together in the cabin in which they were quartered.

It should be explained that the bunks usually handed over to the crew had, on this particular ship and on this particular voyage, been vacated for a special reason, and the space thus left free was filled with war material of an important nature. The ship herself, in pre-war days one of the ocean greyhounds which conveyed passengers between the United States and England, provided ample accommodation elsewhere for the crew as well as a 'tween-decks space for cargo—in this case, as has been hinted, of unusual value.

"Mighty queer," repeated Larry, as he thrust the stump end of a cigar into the corner of his mouth, American-wise, and chewed it savagely. "You're sure you're right, you young chaps. This feller, who is he?—one of the officers, crew, or what?"

Bill shook his head.

"Oh!" gulped Larry, drawing at his cigar and then regarding it severely when he found it had gone out.

"Couldn't say. Might be anything," said Jim reflectively. "It was too dark to be sure, but——"

"Yep, but——" Larry flicked the ash off the end of his smoke. "Yep," he repeated encouragingly, "but——"

"But he went for'ard."

"Oh, he went for'ard!" said Larry.

"For'ard!" ejaculated Bill; "but that's where——" and then he stopped in the midst of his sentence.

"That's where things of importance are carried," said Larry significantly, "things that if they was lost might hamper the troops in France, things what Uncle Sam's been hard at work makin' so as to down the Kaiser; now if——"

All three looked in succession at one another, their suspicions clearly written on their faces.

"If," said Bill at last, "he wanted—this fellow we've caught a sight of—to break up the ship to sink the cargo—well, isn't he the sort of man that would slink about and not want to be seen, and disappear when there was a hail from the bridge? Should he look sideways at everyone and want to keep himself to himself? As to whether he's one of the crew or not, who knows?"

Finally they came to the conclusion that no one could guess, and that positive evidence was required before they could proceed further with the matter.

"Only," said Jim in his quiet reflective way, "it's up to us to give a hint to the old man. Supposing now we set a watch and the fellow eludes us and really does a mischief, who'd be blamed? Who'd blame themselves most? You would Larry—you and I and Bill."

"But supposing it's a mare's nest, what about it?" asked Larry, pulling hard at his cigar. "The old man would point at us, the officers would smile, the men would smirk and have a few things to say that wasn't altogether complimentary. I'm a quiet sort of chap I am, Jim, but when fellers gets sarcastic it gets my goat up. I can stand fun—lots of it—skylarkin' don't come amiss to me nor to Bill either, and I dare say you can enjoy a little of it; but downright contempt, nasty sort of sarcasm, that gets me every time, and I find myself fingering my gun, that is, I should if I carried one, which I don't now, seeing it's against the rules of shipboard."

In the end they approached Tom, the huge sailor who had befriended them in getting their berths on board the ship, and with his approval took the first opportunity of having a clandestine meeting with the Skipper.

"You've done quite rightly," the latter told them. "This may be a mare's nest, as Larry here says. In that case it doesn't go any further, not another man aboard the ship will know; though, as a matter of precaution, I shall tell my officers. They have all sailed with me for years and I can vouch for their honesty and patriotism, they are either British or American to the backbone—and that's something in these days."

"Guess it is," Larry ejaculated. "Well then?"

"Forewarned is forearmed," the Skipper said. "I'll not interfere further. You three, with Tom here, will take the matter into your own hands. One of you had best feign illness—serious illness I mean; and the other two can be put on duty night and day to watch him. Tom can be the sympathetic friend. We'll give it out that it's pneumonia or some other ailment which will account for two of the men—two friends that is—attending to him. After that you will make your own plans. Carry on, as they say in the army."

And "carry on" Bill and Jim and Larry did, with Tom's connivance.

"And you've give it out that it's pneumonia?" asked Larry in subdued tones that very evening, as Bill stood at the door of his cabin with a jug of milk in his hand, while Jim stood at the foot of his resting-place. "Every soul aboard knows as Larry, new hand—what we'd call a 'tenderfoot' way west—is down with a go of bronchitis and a cough what 'ud make his worst enemy sorry for him. Listen to it!"

The impertinent fellow coughed and coughed and coughed till Jim really felt anxious about him, while Bill, seeing the fun of the thing, laughed so heartily that the milk spilt from the jug, and Jim brought him up with an "about-turn".

"That's the sort of thing you'd do at the door of a sick-room?" he asked severely. "Here's Larry coughing his heart out, and you laughing in that heartless way. Put the milk down and go!"

If any one of the crew had been in the neighbourhood they would have seen the youthful Bill slinking away with his tail between his legs; for he recognized how injudicious his behaviour had been, though indeed Larry was to blame, since he was the cause of it. But a few hours' experience of this new plan caused all to settle down, and their hilarity to give place to essential seriousness. Indeed that night all realized that their quest meant much, not only to themselves and their shipmates, but to the British army, which was looking for the delivery of the goods which they were carrying.

However, they had yet to prove that their suspicions were well founded. It might, as Larry had said and repeated more than once with a sheepish grin, be "but a mare's nest", in which case all three friends, and the burly Tom in addition, felt—though they took care not to tell one another—that the position would be a little trying.

"You can take it from me," said Larry, when he had given up coughing violently, and he and Bill and Jim sat with their heads close together discussing the matter, "you can put it right like this: ef there's a chap aboard what's slinking about, he's either crazy or he's got something to slink for. What's a man want to slink about in the darkness for—eh?"

"Stealing," suggested Jim.

"Ho! stealing!" growled Larry; "as ef there was any one of us aboard worth robbing! No, that don't appeal to me; it's something wus."

"Worse," Bill also thought it. He stood for a while silent and thoughtful and then crept out of the cabin. Yet though he watched from the waist of the ship for an hour, and Jim, who relieved him, sat there for a similar period, nothing occurred to arouse their suspicions. A little later, Larry, with a blanket wrapped round him, groped his way along the deck and lay down at the doorway which led into the forecastle.

"If the feller's on the roam, he's got to roam over me," he thought, as he made himself comfortable. "Of course it may be as he wants to get down one of the hatchways. Ef so, Tom, watching back there, will spot him."

Yet the night passed without incident, and on the following day the three friends continued with their plan, though now doubting more than ever the justice of their suspicions. As to the imposition they were practising, it was never suspected by any of the crew of the steamer.

"That there young Larry's ill," said a stoker, as he pushed his head up from the engine companion and wiped the sweat from his brow with a dirty rag, which had been clean that morning, and which he removed from his neck, as is the habit of the fraternity, "he's just the look of a man what 'ud go down. Pneumonia, eh?" he remarked, as he casually plugged tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. "Huh! shouldn't wonder!" he nodded wisely. "Thin, delicate sort of a chap what 'ud break up easy. That sort doesn't make old bones. Perhaps dead afore morning! You never know! So long, sonny!"

The beaming face, the smoking clay pipe, the black head of tousled hair disappeared; the stoker dived down into the bowels of the ship, and the man to whom he had addressed his somewhat lugubrious remarks heard the rattle of his stoking shovel a few moments later. If the stoker himself could have seen Larry his exclamations might well have been varied.

"Never felt better in all my life," said the invalid, as he sat in the corner of the cabin, smoking a cigar, which, as was his wont, was tucked into the corner of his mouth alongside his teeth, and caused a bulge in one cheek. "Never! Only I'm puzzled about this matter, and don't I want to catch this fellow?—that is," he added, "ef there is a feller, ef young Bill didn't imagine him. He's young is Bill, and there's no saying ef he's grown out of all his youthful imaginings yit."

Whereat Bill flared up, and became even more determined to discover the culprit.

"For I'm sure," he told himself, as he walked up and down the deck, "that I saw someone—someone who was slinking about—a suspicious someone. Well, we shall see. We are more than half-way across to England now, and in a couple of nights we shall make the north coast of Ireland. If anything is going to happen, it's got to happen pretty soon. We shall see!"

It was in fact precisely two nights later, when the ship had drawn within twenty miles of the Irish coast, and was making a direct run for her English port, that Bill, creeping along the deck, sighted a flitting figure.

"Come along," he whispered, running back to the cabin and beckoning Larry and Jim. "I've seen someone—he's down in the waist. Don't wait for anything, and be as quiet as you know how. I reckon we'll discover who he is this time."

They followed instantly, and, sneaking down the ladder, hid themselves beside the windlass, with a mast towering quite close to them, and there, breathless with their haste, their hearts thumping with excitement and expectation, they waited, peering this way and that, seeing nothing for the moment. A little later Bill stretched out a hand and touched Larry on the shoulder.

"There!" he whispered. "There!" and, swinging round, Larry, too, caught a faint impression of a head and shoulders against the star-lit sky. He waited while Jim drew closer and also saw the figure.

Then all three crept along the deck, one behind another, as a man on the far side of it drew away from them.

"Bound for the fo'c'sle," Larry said hoarsely. "It's locked ain't it?"

"Locked," answered Jim laconically. "But he'll have a key. Listen to it!"

There came to their ears the faint click of an instrument being used in the lock of the forecastle door—a gentle, grinding sound, and then silence.

"Come on," whispered Bill; "perhaps he's gone in. Got your flash lamps?"

All three had, and, making their way swiftly along the deck, they soon reached the bulkhead behind which lay the forecastle. The door, previously shut fast and locked, stood ajar. Bill pushed it open without hesitation, Larry pressed up beside him, and Jim peered over their shoulders. Then Bill switched on the beam of his electric torch.

The light flooded the forecastle, fell upon that material so valuable to our fighting forces which the vessel was carrying at full speed to Britain en route for the battle-fields, swept over a space of empty deck, hugged other material, and glancing from it went on to the depths beyond, almost to the bows of the vessel. There it was brought up, as it were, abruptly by the figure of a man, half-bent, facing the doorway, a man at whose feet stood a square iron box, in the lid of which was a metal plunger, a man who stared at them with wide-open eyes, startled yet full of hate, which blinked in the electric beams.

"It's—it's Heinrich!" roared Larry, darting forward and slipping a hand on his empty holster pocket. "It's the German that shot Charlie back there in the camp by the copper-mine. It's the same ugly phiz as was in the picture found in his lodgings. It's——"

With a hasty movement the man banged a fist on the metal plunger. A brilliant flash of light followed the movement, and then a hissing, sizzling noise, while smoke filled the forecastle. Steps were heard, and the door above banged as the rascal, too much concerned for his own safety to think of any further need for caution, clambered up the companion and emerged on the deck, then came a blinding flash, and Jim, seizing Bill and Larry, dragged them through the doorway.

"Back!" he shouted. "Lie down on your faces! Hi there, on the bridge!" he bellowed. "Look out for yourselves! we've come upon our man, but it's too late; he's fired his detonator, his bomb's on the point of bursting."

Before a return hail could come, almost before the three could fling themselves upon the deck, so as to escape the effects of the impending explosion, the deck above the forecastle soared into the air, there came a shattering, tearing roar of breaking woodwork, a deafening detonation, while bolts and masses of wood and iron thudded upon the decks around or splashed into the water—water made clearly visible by the flare which burst from the fore part of the vessel. As for the latter, she trembled in every timber and plate, her decks shook and rolled, she heaved and thrust her bows upward; then they came down with a souse, and for a moment it looked as though she were going under. But not yet! She lay with her stern high in the air and her forecastle slowly submerging; and as she lay there helpless, changed in one moment from a controllable dependable unit of efficiency to a shattered wreck, of a sudden a beam broke the blackness all about her—an electric beam projected from some surface vessel. This beam flooded the ship, flooded the water all about her, and threw a streak of brilliant light from a point perhaps half a mile from her.

Somewhere in that streak there appeared a tiny object, a tiny boat in which a single man rowed furiously—doubtless he was the German.

CHAPTER VI Bombed in Mid-ocean

Darkness covered the scene a minute after that shattering detonation which had lifted the forecastle of the ship in which Larry, and Jim, and Bill were sailing. The deafening report, the shattering sound of raining woodwork and iron, and the swish of timber and bullets as they fell in the water were succeeded by a deathly silence. No one called out, not a cry escaped the crew of the vessel. From that point, half a mile distant across the level surface of the water, from which a brilliant beam had played upon the scene there came not so much as a whisper, not a hail, nothing to denote whence the light came, or from what source—whether enemy or ally—and then, of a sudden, the darkness was rent, though in puny form, by the comparatively feeble light from a torch wielded by Larry. Those who stared down from the bridge to the waist of the ship could make out the dim form of the American, with Jim and Bill near him, and could see Larry's right arm moving up and down, his fist shaking in the direction from which the light had flashed upon them.

"Of all the scoundrels!" he was shouting. "Of all the low-down German skunks! And we was too late to take him, we was, Jim! Gurr!" The fist came down with a bang upon his somewhat attenuated chest, whereupon Larry coughed.

"Silence!" There came a hail from the bridge. "To your boat stations! Larry, come up here, and your friends too, and report what's happened. Mr. Quartermaster, go forward and report."

Mr. Quartermaster promptly carried out the order, in fact he was already on his way for'ard as it came, and presently returned bearing a smoking lantern.

"It's driv her deck right off and blown a hole right down through her, sir," he reported. "There's six foot or more water in the fore part of the vessel, and she's down four foot or more."

"Sinking?" asked the Skipper curtly.

"Aye, sir, sinking!"

"Ah! and how long will she take?"

"Depends!" came the answer. "If the bulkhead holds she might make a port safely. If it don't"—the burly Quartermaster shrugged his shoulders—"if it don't, well it don't!"

For a while they stood there on the bridge, considering the matter, and then the Skipper himself took the lamp and went for'ard, taking Jim and Larry and Bill with him, while the ship's electrician followed with a couple of high-power lamps with which to illuminate the part which had been damaged.

"Not so bad as I thought," said the Skipper after a while, when he had thoroughly examined the matter. "You can douse that light now, for it will be seen far out at sea, and that submarine which picked up the German might become inquisitive. There's a chance of saving her, I think, only it's almost impossible to say at night-time. At the first streak of dawn we'll have a careful investigation of the ship, and meanwhile we'll victual our boats and make all ready. There's one thing I'm glad to see: the explosion has shattered the deck above and has blown a hole downward, but it doesn't seem to have damaged much of our cargo; in fact, the effects of the high-explosive have not spread except directly upwards and downwards; and that is fortunate—that is to say, if we can save the vessel."

The remainder of the night was spent in swinging out the boats and in carefully victualling them all, food and water being placed in every one of them. Then the men sat down on the deck and smoked as calmly as might be, uncertain of the morrow, yet, sailor-like, as confident as ever. As the dawn came, hot coffee was served round together with ship's biscuit.

"It'll do no harm to any one of us," the Skipper said; "and an empty stomach doesn't conduce to high courage; a chilly early morning and hunger don't let a man tackle a job squarely. Now then, we'll have a good look round. Ha! four feet down, you said, Mr. Quartermaster. I should say she was six feet down by the head now. Ugly! Don't like it!"

"Only, she ain't more down than she was last night," came a moment later the most emphatic answer. "I'll swear to it. At night-time a man's likely to be put out a little in his measurements, and that's what's happened, I believe. If she's deeper its only by a matter of six inches, which you'd expect, seeing that I sounded the water in her hold within half an hour of the explosion. If she ain't sunk by now, sir, she won't sink by this time to-morrow; that is, if you don't drive her too hard, and if the weather don't come up over too rough and blowin'."

"If," sniffed Larry. "I'm not a sailor, but even I can see that things are queer. Only if there's a chance of saving her we'll stand by. Trust us!"

A cheer came from the men who stood round waiting for the Skipper to decide finally what was to happen. Once more he went forward, and now that there was bright daylight, and he was able the better to examine the damage, it was not long before he returned to them, his face set, but his eyes bright and glowing.

"She might sink any moment," he told them abruptly, looking round at the expectant faces. "In that case she'd take us all down, and the boats too. Well, those of you who don't like the outlook had better launch a boat or so and clear off."

"Oh! Ah! Aye!" came from the assembled crew, while one—a foreigner from a neutral country—whimpered. Tom, the giant Quartermaster, turned, growling, upon him. Then he swung round.

"What about you, Skipper?" he asked bluntly.

"Yep! what about you?" lisped Larry in his inimitable manner. "Me and Jim and English Bill has got a little inquisitive, ain't we?" he asked, whereat the two chums nodded.

"Aye, very inquisitive!" Jim chimed in.

"And I'll tell you why, sir," Bill said. "If you are not going over the side into one of the boats to pull away, if you are going to stay here with the chance of being pulled under——"

"Well, what of it?" asked the Skipper, his eyes deep sunk, sparkling in the morning sunlight.

"That's all about it, then," Bill answered him, just as abruptly; "we're not going either. You are in command here, and if you tell us it's no longer a case of ordering us to stay, and that you are going to stand by because it's duty or something of that sort, because you are going to save the ship and her cargo, and by doing that to help your country, that means that every mother's son of us that's English stands by you, and every mother's son of us that's an American ally does the same—eh, Larry?"

That individual merely tilted his peaked cap a little forward, hitched up his baggy trousers, and slapped the empty pocket wherein he was wont to keep his revolver.

"Yep," he replied, and finally extricated from the depths of one of his coat pockets the stump of a cigar, which went into its accustomed position. "Yep," he lisped again; "I rather like it, Skipper. Supposin' she was to go down now and pull us with her, it wouldn't be worse than being blown sky-high, the same as that Heinrich something-or-other would have done with us. Sky-high, eh? You wait until I meet him again, I'll 'sky-high' him! But it's get in at it, Skipper. You are staying, so am I, so's English Bill, and so's Jim and Tom and every other mother's son of us. What? No; I've made a mistake. Here's one as wants to go over the side and pull off into safety! You—you——" he began, as he stepped towards the shrinking sailor who had whimpered.

"Stop!" commanded the Skipper. "Lower one of the boats and put this man in it; only, see that there are no oars. He can tow aft, and if the ship shows signs of going down he can cut himself adrift, otherwise if he cuts he will be alone. In any case he will be safe, and that's what he considers of uppermost importance. Now, lads, we've got to hold a council of war. Tom, it's my belief that if we push the old girl along even in this sea, for you can't call it rough, we shall burst in our for'ard bulkheads, swamp her 'midships, and send her down like a stone."

Tom agreed. He nodded that big curly head of his and turned his quid into the other cheek.

"So we'll run her astern. She's sound there, and no sea that's running will do her any harm. It'll make steering a bit of a job, but it's not impossible. Of course I shall lay a course for the nearest port, which means some little corner on the Irish coast. If she gets deeper down in the water, and looks like foundering, I shan't wait to run her into a port, but shall beach her on the first opportunity. After all, boys, it isn't the ship that matters so much, though ships are valuable these days and getting more so, it's the cargo we've got, and that we must save at any hazard."

All through that day the crew stood by the Skipper gamely, so gamely that, what with their jovial faces and their satirical remarks to the sailor seated in the boat towing behind the vessel, that worthy managed to scrape together a modicum of courage. He even begged to be taken aboard, and, finding that no one took the slightest notice of him, finally pulled on the rope, and, getting close under the bows of the vessel, now sadly sunk and projecting only a little way from the water, he managed to clamber aboard, and found his way across the wrecked planking.

Towards evening the wind, which had been swinging round to the west since the early hours, veered to the east and began to blow more strongly. The swell, which had rocked the vessel ever so gently during the day, became bigger, and soon waves were washing against her sides and were causing her to roll and to plunge, every plunge sending her bows deep under, till at times it appeared they would never rise again. Yet the crew stuck to their posts. Fortunately, too, every hand was required to assist in navigating the vessel, for, going astern as she was, it was no easy task to keep her on a course, and at least four men were required at the wheel, which now steered her, her automatic steam steering-gear having got out of order. What with preparing the boats, making ready for their rapid launching, cooking food, hauling ropes, and standing by the wheel, every member, whether steward or deck-hand, had ample employment, and therefore sufficient distraction from his dangerous surroundings.

Yet in spite of distractions it became greatly and increasingly obvious to all that the vessel was sinking deeper, that her buoyancy was gone, that she lifted now so very slowly from the trough of the seas that a larger one following in her wake might easily overwhelm her. Yet the eyes of the Skipper still flashed and glowed as warmly as ever; Larry strutted the deck as gamely as he had done on the first day when he had stepped aboard as she lay in the Hudson River; Jim, his arms bare to the elbow, worked as cheerily as any member; while Bill—English Bill, as he had naturally come to be called—carried on as though nothing out of the usual was occurring. It was five o'clock in the evening when the Skipper, pointing to the Irish coast-line, now some four miles distant, gave the order to beach the vessel.

"She may or she may not carry as far as that," he added, his lips compressed together. "If she does, it's a flat beach and a high tide, so the cargo will be salved without much difficulty, even the vessel might be salved later on, though I am not thinking of her in particular. Keep her on that course, Mr. Quartermaster; she'll do. I'll go right for'ard so as to con her when we get to close quarters. English Bill, you come along too, and bring Larry and Jim. You might be useful."

The sun was sinking, and already evening was drawing in, but the light was sufficiently good to enable all hands to see the Irish coast clearly. Peering at it through the glasses which the Skipper lent him, Bill could make out a flat pebbly shore, with land rising gradually from it. It looked indeed the very place on which to beach a vessel, and, better than all, the beach seemed to stretch for miles, so that though the ship could only steer an erratic course it was hardly likely that she would miss some portion of the part selected for landing.

"What's that? Look yonder!" Jim called out a few minutes later, as, having watched the shore for a time, he swept his eyes seaward. "That, sir——"

"A submarine! Possibly the one that took off that rascal last night. A submarine without doubt, and coming to the surface. She's up! She's raising her guns! There's no doubt that she took it for granted last night that the bomb had destroyed us, and, finding us now still floating and about to beach the vessel, she's going to shell us. Stand by, boys! You three remain here, so as to help con the vessel; I'll go on to the bridge to make other arrangements."

Cool and determined, he ran aft to the bridge, and gained it as the submarine opened fire upon them. A shell, indeed, flicked its rapid path just above the bridge, and hitting the charthouse, stripped the roof from it.

"Boys," called out the Skipper, as cool as ever, "swing out the two boats here on the starboard side. The ship will give them shelter. Lower them into the water and let 'em tow. Now, all hands at it! One moment, though. You, Tom Spencer, get down to the engine-room and send the Chief Engineer to me."

As the vessel's screws pulled her still nearer to the Irish coast, and the men set to work, rapidly yet in good order and without confusion, to lower the boats on the side farthest from that point where the submarine had made its appearance, the guns aboard the latter—for she carried two—got the range and began to burst shrapnel over her decks. A man fell; the front of the bridge and the canvas screen along it were torn into shreds. Another man, standing on the bulwark guiding the falls of one of the boats, let go his hold, staggered, and tumbled head foremost into the water. An instant later Tom, the Quartermaster, dived in after him, and as the Skipper looked over the side he saw the sturdy form of the lusty sailor rise to the surface bearing the man in one arm. By then a couple of hands had swung down the falls into the boat, and the two were dragged into her.

Crash! A shell plunged across the decks near the after part of the vessel, where Jim and Larry and Bill stood, and, hitting the deck house which sheltered the steam steering-gear, rent it as if it were made of cardboard. The explosion drove the trio to the rails, and left them staggered and gasping. Another, bursting high amidships, flung the men at the wheel in all directions.

"Steady, boys!" called out the Skipper. "Four more of you get to that wheel! Larry, how's she doing?"

"As straight as a die! She'll do!" came the cheery answer. "Now, you young chaps," went on Larry, as a shell ricochetted from the sea close under the stern of the vessel, "you two had best get along towards the bridge and go over the side into the boats. The hands are all tumbling into 'em. They'll be clear of shells there, the ship'll give 'em shelter."

"And you?" asked Jim, while Bill looked sharply at Larry, looked quite indignantly at him in fact.

"Me——?" began Larry, as though he were intensely astonished at the question. "Oh, me? I've been given the job of staying here, but you ain't. You cut off, you two."

There might have been an explosion on the spot, judging from the appearance of Jim and Bill. They were, in fact, on the point of reminding their chum that they too had received orders.

"Leave the job? Funk it?" began Bill.

"See here," Jim shouted. "I—we——"

The arguments, whatever they were, were cut short by a blinding flash, by a shattering detonation, then, so far as the trio were concerned, by nothingness. A shell had burst against the ship's counter, wrecking her rudder and smashing a huge hole in her plates just above the water-line. In its course it crumpled the deck above upwards as if it had been made of paper, and, bursting its way through, probably ricochetting from one of the main beams of the vessel, it scattered Jim and Bill and Larry in the very midst of their argument. It flung them far from the ship, and sent them sprawling in the water, where, fortunately for them, the cold revived them and helped to keep them conscious. Yet it was only in a half-conscious way, automatically, as it were, that each one battled and supported himself in the water, while his head swam, his brain reeled, and his ears were filled with strange noises.

Little by little the ship passed on. Now and again other shells crashed against her. More than once, Bill, peering through his wet eyelashes at her, heard the sound of voices, and then presently saw a beam of light flash from the shore, and watched as the vessel slowly grounded.

"Saved her!" he shouted, and then subsided, as the sea washed into his mouth and set him choking.

Something touched his shoulder. Something gripped him by his sodden coat-sleeve. He turned, and there, staring at him, illuminated by the beam from the shore, was a face with which he was familiar, no one could have mistaken it. It was the thin, cadaverous, smiling face of Larry, with those twinkling, merry eyes of his, that happy-go-lucky, inimitable look with which he always favoured his friends and his enemies.

"You!" he shouted, "and here's Jim too! Here, hang on, young Bill, we've got hold of something that looks like a bit of a boat. Now, if we get washed ashore, what a landing!"

"Only——!" Jim, who lay athwart the shattered boat, peering at the shore, blinking in the light, stretched an arm across their faces and directed their attention to a point closely adjacent. "Look there!"

It was the submarine, now awash with the surface, her conning-tower thrown open. A man was standing there, while on the deck below there were a couple of German sailors armed with rifles. Did they see the three wallowing in the water? Were they going to shoot them down? Heaven knows! German sailors, to their eternal dishonour, have shot down helpless people—aye, helpless women and children, too—in open boats after similar submarine warfare. But no. The submarine came closer, the officer in the conning-tower gave a sharp order and shouted. A man slid down her bulging side with a rope round his waist, and a minute or so later the three friends had been hauled on to her narrow deck. Then a guttural voice ordered them to clamber to the conning-tower.