“Why so sure, Morgan?” asked the ensign with curiosity. “You couldn’t see the water pouring off her sides as she came up in that mirage,” scoffed Ikey. “No; but another thing I did notice,” Whistler declared, answering both the doubting ones. “She had no flag or ensign flying!” “Good point!” cried Mr. MacMasters. “If she had been a regular steamship, no matter what her business might be, she would have shown at least a pennant. And we would have seen it fluttering, for there is a good breeze.” “Right, my boy,” admitted Mr. MacMasters. “I must report to the chief. But, of course, we can have no surety as to the direction of the craft, nor of her distance from us.” The mirage caused considerable excitement and a good deal of discussion aboard the destroyer. Aside from the more or less “scientific” explanations offered by the old-time garbies in the crew, Ikey Rosenmeyer suggested one very pertinent idea: As he had sighted the ship which two other witnesses agreed was a submarine, was he not entitled to the twenty-dollar gold piece which was Commander Lang’s standing offer for such a discovery? “Catch Ikey overlooking any chance for adding to his bank account,” Al Torrance declared. “Why, he’s got the first quarter he ever earned and keeps it in a wash-leather pouch around his neck.” “Bejabbers!” agreed Frenchy in his broadest brogue, “an’ that’s the truth. Did yez iver see the little flock of trained dimes Ikey’s got? Wheniver they hear the spindin’ of money mintioned, they clack in Ikey’s pocket as loud as a police rattle.” “You certainly can stretch the truth, Frenchy,” admonished Belding. “Truth in your facile fingers becomes a piece of India rubber.” “Gab, gab, gab!” ejaculated Ikey, seriously. “It doesn’t prove anything. I want to know if I am going to get the twenty? I saw the submarine first.” “A mirage,” scoffed Frenchy. “That’s all right. It was a reflection of a real ship. Mr. MacMasters said so. If I’d seen a submarine picture in a looking glass, rising right off yonder,” and he pointed over the rail of the destroyer, “wouldn’t I have yelled, ‘There she blows!’ and got the double-eagle?” “But you gave no alarm,” grinned Al. “Did he, Whistler?” “I guess he did call the attention of an officer to it,” Whistler responded, with great gravity. “Are you going right up to the Commander with your claim, Ike?” While the boys and the rest of the crew were joking about the mysterious submarine, the officers of the _Colodia_ were seriously engaged in discussing the immediate course of the destroyer. They were under orders to find the _Sea Pigeon_, a very fast raider; but they could not refuse very well to try to pick up this big submersible, if she could be overtaken.