"That will get us over one difficulty," said Jack, "and I have just thought of a plan that will get us over another--that of getting the submarine into the water unobserved. It strikes me that we can do all that is necessary without using the submarine at all. That torpedo boat is, as you may observe, lying quite close to the shore, so close, indeed, that there cannot be much more than two feet of water under her keel. Consequently Macintyre and I have only to don our special diving dresses--which, as I think I have explained to you, need no air-pipe or anything of that sort--go down over the side of the yacht, and make our way to our prey under water. With a little management we could even do the trick in broad daylight, and nobody be any the wiser!" "Excellent!" exclaimed Milsom enthusiastically. "We will have the lighters alongside to coal us to-morrow; and before they come along we will hang tarpaulins all round the ship to keep the paint clean. Then, while everybody is busy coaling, you and Macintyre can watch your opportunity and slip over the side through the ash port. Gad! won't those fellows be wrathy when their propeller parts company! They will no doubt suspect us, but they cannot possibly prove anything." On the following morning, immediately after breakfast, Milsom went ashore and made arrangements for the immediate coaling of the yacht; and while he was absent, Jack and Macintyre, the chief engineer, got out the diving dresses and thoroughly overhauled them, charged the air cylinders with densely-compressed air, and collected such tools as they expected to require for their job. By the time that this had been done, Milsom was back aboard the yacht, having made all his arrangements, including one which was of considerable assistance to Jack and Macintyre. This consisted of an arrangement to take the yacht directly alongside the coal hulk, instead of coaling from lighters, and the advantage to the conspirators arose from the fact that the particular hulk from which the _Thetis_ was to coal lay within a short hundred yards of the spot where the Spanish torpedo boat rode at anchor. Then a number of tarpaulins were got up on deck and hung over the ship's sides, fore and aft, covering the hull from the bulwark rail right down to the surface of the water, to protect the white paint from defilement by flying coal dust; and, this having been done, the yacht was taken alongside the coal hulk, and the process of coaling the vessel at once began under the joint supervision of Milsom and the second engineer, the skipper being especially particular in the arranging of the fenders between the hulls of the two craft. So fastidiously careful was he, indeed, in this matter, that he finally caused two booms to be rigged out, one forward and one aft, to bear the yacht off from the side of the hulk, with the result that there was a clear space of fully two feet between the sides of the two craft.