I loved it a great deal and we were inseparable. It had to sleep on a rug by my bed. One beautiful summer’s day we were playing in the sun on a large lawn before the house when suddenly a large, unknown hound came rushing towards my little pet and blood-thirstily chased it around the lawn. The nasty dog was about to run it down when my pet, with a shrill shriek, appealed for help. I was standing paralyzed in terror and could not get a word through my lips, when unexpectedly the owner called the dog back with a whistle. Then I threw myself, with great exultation, down alongside my pet, pressed it to my heart, kissed its black snoot, and cried and laughed with joy. Those were my feelings now, when, with my own eyes, I saw the impossible—that the destroyer, without suspecting our presence, had steered away from us. Was it possible that he did not see us, when, according to my estimation, he was only about eight hundred meters away? Could the mate be right, and the foolish destroyer have only searched the passage in accordance with his schedule? “But,” I thought, with a shiver, “how easily would not perchance a glance in our direction have betrayed us?” Radiant with joy, I told the crew in the “Centrale” what a happy turn the affairs had taken at the last moment. A burden must have fallen from the hearts of my splendid, brave boys. I then revealed my plans to the engineer: “We are going to lie here until the destroyer reaches the other end of his patrol, which is about three to four sea miles from here. Then, at once, quickly empty all the tanks so that the boat cuts loose from the reef. At top speed, we will make for deep water and then dive again to a safe position below the surface.” Again a light rain-cloud floated slowly towards us and favored our plans. Soon the destroyer could be seen only as a fading figure in the mist. Now we could risk to arise and get away from our other danger—the fiercely rolling breakers. The valves were quickly opened. At once the boat came up. The terrific jolting ceased. The hand of the manometer moved upwards, and, after a few seconds, the boat’s broad, dripping back broke through the surface. There is the buoy! Now full speed ahead! We’ll be soon there—now but a few hundred meters more and then the game is ours—a game on which life and death depended; a game which would have turned our hair white if we had not been so young, and if we had not, through horrible dangers, been united by true and faithful bonds. As soon as we had placed ourselves on the right side of the longed-for buoy we again hurled ourselves deep down into the cool sea as happily as a fish which for a long time had been on dry land, and suddenly gets into its own element again.