"Guess we'll lie here and wait for them to come along," whispered McClure to Cleary as the periscopes popped up out of the depths into the night gloom. "We seem to be right in their path and may be able to get one of them as he shoots across our bow," added Cleary as he took another telephone report from the wireless room. According to Sammy Smith's observations there were two vessels coming up to starboard, while the third, the one the _Dewey_ had missed, was dim in the port microphone and almost out of range. Engines shut off, the submarine lay entirely concealed, awaiting the coming of her prey. It was McClure's idea to lie perfectly still in the water until one of the enemy warships swung right into the range glass of the _Dewey_ and then give it a stab of steel---a sting in the dark from a hidden serpent! The waiting moments seemed like hours. Gradually, however, the leader of the silent ships drew nearer. There was no mistaking the telltale reports in the wireless room. Basing his calculations on the chief electrician's reports, McClure figured the leader of the oncoming squadron to be now not more than half a mile away and moving steadily forward toward the desired range---a dead line on the bow of the _Dewey_. Executive Officer Cleary at the reserve periscope was first to detect the mass of steel looming up out of the darkness. Lieutenant McClure swung his periscope several degrees to starboard and drew a bead on the German warship an instant later. "We'll drop this chap just as he shoots across our bow," declared the _Dewey's_ commander. Five hundred yards away came the speeding warship. It was close enough now for the American officers to make out her outlines in detail and to satisfy themselves that this was another member of the raiding party out of the great German naval base in back of Heligoland. "All right, here goes," shouted the doughty Yankee skipper a moment later as the German cruiser drew up until her bow edged into the circle that McClure had marked off on the periscope as the exact spot on which to aim his fire. Swish! went the torpedo as it shot from the bow of the _Dewey_ and straightened out in the water on its foamy trail, cutting through the sea like a huge swordfish. It took only a moment---an interval of time during which the torpedo from the American submarine and the German cruiser seemed irresistibly drawn toward each other. And then came the crash---the impact of the torpedo's war-nose against the steel side of the cruiser, the detonation of the powerful explosive, the rending of the German hull. And then, loud enough for his crew forward to hear his words, McClure called out: "A perfect hit, boys; torpedo landed plumb in the engine room of a big German cruiser." A great cheer resounded through the hull of the American undersea craft as the good news was borne to the torpedo crew forward and to the engine room aft.