“Periscope port bow!” bawled the look-out, and simultaneously the alarm gongs jarred at every gun position and action station. The Admiral was beside the quarter-master in two bounds. “There she goes, sir,” cried the officer of the watch, and indicated with outstretched finger the wicked streak of bubbles that flickered in the wake of a torpedo: it passed ahead, but through his glasses the Admiral was watching the sparkling water for the periscope’s feather. He sighted it almost on the instant, half a mile abeam, an object no bigger than a broom-handle above the wave-tops. Once, thirty years before, in a moment of crisis, he had acted as he did then. It was a wholly unconstitutional proceeding, but on the former occasion it had averted a collision between two battleships of the line. On both occasions it saved a few precious seconds. He grasped the spokes of the wheel with his own hands and wrenched the helm hard-a-starboard before the quartermaster realised he was at his elbow. The officer of the watch had sprung to the telegraph, and down below the gongs were ringing madly for full speed. The yacht’s owner had built her for speed. He was a rich man, and could afford to gratify a whim. In this case he gratified it to the utmost designer and engineers were capable of; but never till this moment had a rich man’s craze been so completely justified. Her knive-edge swan bows clove the dancing waves in twin sickles of spray as she heeled over to her helm and then steadied on the mark that was already swiftly dipping before the unexpected onslaught. The periscope vanished thirty seconds before the yacht passed over the wash of the unseen scourge: but as it passed the Admiral jerked a lever twice, and turned, staring aft down the broken wake that had obliterated all traces of the submarine. By means of the lever he had released a couple of explosive charges, and as he stood shading his eyes from the sun, two great columns of foam leaped into the air. “Hard-a-starboard!” he croaked, and over went the helm again. He stepped to the gun control voice-pipe: “Stand by the port guns!” and as he gave the order a greenish-brown cylindrical shape, streaked with rust and spouting oil from gaping seams, appeared in the centre of the boiling scum and foam left by the explosion. Slowly it righted itself, and the hull and conning-tower of a submarine lay on the surface with a heavy list. As the yacht swung round, the port guns opened fire: a shell burst on the armoured conning-tower, shattering the periscope and blowing great fragments of steel high into the air. Another penetrated the hull and exploded internally, clouds of vapour pouring from the rents in the shell. The coxswain steadied the wheel, heading the bows straight for the great whale-like object.