The Italian crew consisted of a picked lot of fine patriotic fellows, who only now knew their desperate mission, and they knew also what their fate must be--either death or capture, when the truth became revealed. After travelling swiftly all night, the periscope revealed at dawn the long, broken Austrian coast. Then, when within five miles of the entrance to the deep bay of Quarnero, at the end of which is situated Austria's important harbour, the vessel emerged and ran up her Austrian colours. Before her, high upon the green point of Monte Grosso, which guards the entrance to the bay, a signal was made, to which Number 117 replied, and then, with her grey hull showing above the surface, she sped unsuspiciously up the channel, past the small wooded islands, and the pretty town of Abbazia, into the harbour, where lay fully a dozen war vessels, including three of the enemy's biggest battleships. Suddenly, however, just as she was about to discharge a torpedo at a battleship flying the Admiral's flag, the thunder of guns rang out from all sides, and Number 117 became the target for concentrated fire from all the forts. As the shells hit her she flew to pieces. Next second she was seen to be rapidly sinking with all on board, not a soul being able to escape from that rain of death. The submarine had been entrapped, and the raid had ignominiously failed. News of the disaster reached Admiral Michelozzo-Alfani through the Naval Intelligence Department in the afternoon, and he sat in his room astounded. So well kept had been his secret that he felt absolutely positive that, outside those officers who formed his Council, nobody had any knowledge of his intention. All of those officers were men above suspicion. That there was a traitor somewhere he was more fully convinced than ever. Other minor secrets had been known to the enemy mysteriously from time to time, yet he had been utterly unable to trace the source of the leakage. Alone in his office at the port, he sat at his table, his brow resting upon his hands. At noon, unknown to him, his wife had telephoned to the Countess Malipiero, but was informed by the latter's maid that she had left hurriedly for Rome on the previous night, after a visit from her friend, Signor Corradini. Throughout the afternoon she expected Carlo to call upon her, and became extremely anxious when he did not put in an appearance. At last, unable to stand the strain longer, she sent her little sewing-maid round to Corradini's flat, but the girl returned with the letter to say that, according to the _donna di casa_, the signor had left Sarzana hurriedly at ten o'clock the previous night. The hours seemed like years as the guilty woman sat alone in her magnificent, old-world salon, pale, startled, and nervous. Upon her left hand she wore a white glove. She had worn it ever since the previous evening, and the reason had greatly perturbed her.