Then Lawless related his adventures since the stormy night when he was placed in charge of the _Gelderland_. He had argued that, if one enemy submarine had been deceived by the supply vessel, others might also be lured to destruction in the same way, and his argument had proved correct. "I suppose I've been guilty of disobedience," he concluded, "but I've bagged four _U_ boats, ramming one and sinking three with the gun we found in the hold. Most of the men in the submarines foundered with them, but we've managed to save about twenty. At first I wondered how they managed to identify the _Gelderland_ in the dark, but I tumbled to it the first night. The masthead light, instead of being on the foremast, was hung on the aftermast, and this, I suppose, was a pre-arranged signal. At any rate, I didn't alter it, and the scheme seemed to work." "If you're not shot, you'll be made a blessed admiral!" the skipper remarked. The court-martial which followed absolved the Lieutenant from the formal charges with which he had been indicted, and a few days later he was informed that, the _Knat_ having arrived at Devonport, he was to return to her with rank of Lieutenant-Commander. And that evening Lawless, in the gladness of his heart, took from its case a battered banjo, and, lifting up his voice in song, declared in inharmonious accents that "Somewhere the sun is shining." CHAPTER IV A BOLT FROM THE BLUE "I feel," said Lawless, addressing himself to Sub-lieutenant Trent as they stood together on the deck of the _Knat_, "as pleased as a pig with two tails." He glanced around him appreciatively, lingering over each well-remembered object, from the quick-firer on the "bandstand" aft to the battered ventilating cowls each side of the for'a'd funnel. "Even the old shipboard stink is fragrant in my nostrils," he went on, "and the awful profanity issuing from the galley yonder is like sweet music unto my ears." "H'm," grunted Trent, "you don't seem to have been very happy in the air service." The look of joyful appreciation faded from the Lieutenant's eyes. "I've lost one thousand five hundred and five pounds since I left the _Knat_," he answered. "Or as good as lost it." "Eh!" ejaculated the junior officer. Whereupon Lawless confided to him the story of his uncle's unfortunate bet and the sad episode of the German spy who, after being rescued from the derelict steamer, had borrowed five pounds. "When you've stopped braying, you jackass, I'll get below," snapped the Lieutenant, and, Trent having mastered his mirth, Lawless departed to his cabin.