"If we didn't look helpless and harmless enough for any Fritz to run right up alongside and 'gloat over,' I'll eat my hat; and that was what I was counting on this fellow doing. Indeed, I'll always think that was just what he _did_ intend to do eventually; only it was the way he went about doing it that was near to upsetting the apple-cart. It seemed reasonable to suppose that he would come up and do his gloating on the side he approached from, and so that was the side I had prepared to receive him on. The heavy list she was under to starboard would have made it possible to bring the gun to bear on him until he was almost under the rail, and then there would be a chance for a lance-bomb. If he came up on the other side by any chance, I had figured that the game would be all up; for there was the fire-raft to give it away, while the list would be on the wrong slant to give the gun a show. Well, whether it was accident or intent, that is just what he did--broached abeam to port, about half a cable's length off the sizzling tank of flaming kerosene. "That next minute or two" (D---- sat up in bed in the excitement of the memory of that stirring interval, and I felt one of his gesticulating fists come with a thump against the bottom of my mattress) "called for some of the quickest thinking and acting I was ever responsible for pulling off. If he stayed up, it flashed to my mind, there was just the chance I might ram him; while if he ducked down, there would probably be a good opening for a depth-charge. I rang up full speed at the same time I was shouting orders to cast off the fire-raft, and to bash in one end of the starboard 'tilting-tank' with an axe. We had considered the possibility of this emergency arising, as much as we hoped it wouldn't, so that no time was lost in meeting it. The fire-raft, boom and all, was cast off clean, and quickly left astern. In scarcely less time was the tank emptied, though the sudden flood from it--it was on the upper deck, understand--came very near to carrying overboard the man who broached it. With motors, of course, we were running all out in 'two jerks,' and she was doing several knots over twenty when, with helm hard-a-starboard, she began rounding on the startled Fritz. "There was no doubt about the fact that he _was_ startled, let me tell you. And, when you think of it, it must have been a trifle disconcerting to see the blown-up and burning boat he had come up to gloat over, and perhaps loot before she went down, suddenly settle back on an even keel and come charging down on him at twenty-five knots. The 'moony' fat phizes that showed above the rail of the bridge were pop-eyed with surprise--yes--and indecision, too, for there were several valuable seconds lost in deciding whether to come on up--she had risen to the surface with only an 'awash' trim--and make a fight with her gun, or to dive.