There had been a command, a call of the summoning bell, a release of power carefully stored for just such an event, and the destroyer leaped ahead like a runner from the starting line. The periscope, meanwhile, continued to plough its way straight ahead almost into the teeth of the wind and the flattened, marbly waves. Presently, either because the destroyer had been seen or heard on the submarine telephone, the submarine began to submerge, sucking in a kind of a foaming hollow as she sank. Aboard the destroyer, they wondered if the keel would clear her, and waited for the shock, the rasping grind. But nothing happened. The first depth bomb fell into the heart of the submarine's swirl even as a well placed stone falls in the heart of a pool. Trembling to the roar of her fans, the destroyer fled across the spot, and turned. The wake of her passing had almost obliterated the platter-shaped swirl the submarine had left behind; one had a vision of the great steel cylinder tumbling, bubbling down through green water to dark, harmless as a spool of thread on the surface, but presently to be changed by the wisdom and cunning of men into monstrous and chaotic strength. One, two, three, four, five ... a thundering pound.... The submarine rose behind them, her bow on the crest of the geyser, an immense, tapering rusty mass, wet and shining in the placid glance of the day. From a kind of hole some distance up the side, a stream of oil ran much like blood from a small deep wound.... A gun spoke, and spoke again, a careening whizz, ... ugly hollow crashes of tearing steel ... the sub heeled far over on her starboard side ... those nearest heard, or thought they heard, screaming ... the bow sank, tilting up the great planes and propellers. A monstrous bubble or two broke on the tormented surface just before she disappeared ... and with her going, the calm of the spring morning, which had been frightened away like a singing bird, returned once more to the tragic and mysterious sea. XIX THE LEGEND OF KELLEY Kelley, not Von Biberstein or Hans Bratwurst, is his name, Kelley spelled with an "e." The first destroyer officer whom you question will very possibly have never heard of him, the second will have heard the legend, the third will tell you of a radio officer, a friend of his, who received one of Kelley's messages. So day by day the legend grows apace. Kelley is the captain of a German submarine.