At eleven o'clock the destroyer, which had been jogging along a few cables ahead, circled round and slowed up. The Submarine Captain rang "Slow" on his telegraph, smiled encouragingly at the civilians who still remained on the bridge, and made a pointing gesture with his thumb at the open conning-tower lid. The civilians, with a nervous straightening of bowler hats and several lingering looks at the sunlit sea and sky, clambered slowly below, and the Captain remained watching the whirling arms of the semaphore on the destroyer's bridge. He dictated a reply to his signalman, then rang down "Stop," and, leaving the lid open, descended to see what order his First Lieutenant was producing out of the crowded chaos below. From the foot of the conning-tower ladder he could see nothing but a mass of humanity, mostly civilian, through which his uniformed crew moved apologetically and bent double. He moved forward into the crowd and assisted his officers in their efforts to station the passengers in positions where they would be as much out of the way as possible, and would at the same time be comfortable enough to lose their desire to move about. At the end of five minutes comparative peace reigned, and the crew were standing at their stations looking at their officers for orders across a new deck of caps and tilted bowler hats. The Captain took a sweeping glance fore and aft, then ascended the conning-tower. He ordered the signalman below, looked across at the destroyer through his glasses, and then descended, closing and locking the lid above his head. As he re-entered the boat, he caught the eye of the First Lieutenant. "Flood one, two, five, six, seven, and eight," he ordered. "Slow ahead both--keep her level." The vent valves indicated their opening with a snort and a roar of air, and the rush and gurgle of flooding tanks cut off the chatter of the passengers, as the clang of a closing breech-block brings silence to a gun's crew. A few seconds later the Captain spoke again. "Flood three and four--take her down." Each order was repeated by the First Lieutenant--an officer whose eyes seemed to note the doings of every man in the boat at once. As the Captain moved to the diving-gauge by the periscope to watch for the first slow movement of the long black needle, the First Lieutenant's hand shot out and gripped the neck of a seaman by the starboard pump, and he spoke in a voice of concentrated, hissing rage. "_That's_ the main line, you fool! Close it, quick, and don't you dare touch it till I tell you!"