She passed over the thousand yards in forty seconds. Then came a dull, rending crash, a slight shiver of the mighty fabric, and then she swept on her way as though she had passed through a couple of inches of planking instead of the steel hull of a submarine warship more than two-thirds her own size. And so in silence and darkness, without the discharge of a gun or the flash of a shot or an audible cry of human pain, the work of death and destruction began and ended. In the passing of an instant a warship had been destroyed which could have annihilated a fleet of modern battleships in detail without once appearing above the surface of the water. The moment that the shock told Alexis that the ram of the _Narwhal_ had done its work, he signalled “Stop,” and as the vessel slowed down he watched the momentous fluctuations of the needle in front of him. It oscillated for an instant and then became still again, pointing to another victim hidden away somewhere under the dark waters. He brought the vessel round until it pointed ahead again, and then once more the leviathan plunged forward at full speed on her errand of destruction. Thirty seconds later a rasping tearing sound, told him that he had ripped the side out of a second Russian vessel; and again he stopped, and again the fatal tell-tale needle pointed to a mark on which he hurled his irresistible ram. So the work went on, and vessel after vessel was torn to pieces and sunk in the midst of the darkness and silence of the wintry sea, without even a warning having been given either to the consorts of the destroyed vessels or to those nearer in shore, all of which were, of course, outside the range of the needle’s indication. But for this fact Alexis would have been unable to do his work, for he would not have known whether he was ramming friend or foe. When the ram had found its mark for the twelfth time, the needle oscillated vaguely to and fro, showing that within a thousand-yards radius at least there were no more victims to be found. Then the _Narwhal_ rose to the surface of the water, and Alexis resumed his watch as the vessel patrolled the coast again at a speed of fifty miles an hour. Alan now came and relieved Alexis from his watch. As he entered the conning-tower he said-- “How many is that you’ve settled? A dozen, isn’t it?” “Yes,” said Alexis, “but I can hardly think they can have been anything but scouts, and so we shall have the main fleet to tackle yet.” “Do you think any of them have got through?” said Alan. “You know they may have approached from east and west as well, and if so they are lying inside of us.” “No,” replied Alexis, “I don’t think they would do that. You see we have the advantage of them in this way. They can’t see ten yards in front of them unless there is bright sunshine on the water, or unless they turn their lights on to the full, in which case they would betray their presence at once.