"Danny Grin could always laugh his way into luck. Good-bye, and success!"
"Thank you," Dan did not omit to signal back. "More of the same to you."
The destroyer increased her speed and forged ahead, disappearing in the distance.
"He knew that Dan Dalzell could take care of himself," Dave declared.
"At least," replied the "Prince"s" commander, "he must have realized that I had some game out here on the water that I didn"t want spoiled."
"Periscope astern, sir!" called a lookout two hours later.
Dan"s watch officer turned just in time to detect, with his gla.s.s, a tube even then being withdrawn back into the water.
"Twelve hundred yards astern, at least," he reported to Dalzell. "I couldn"t have picked it up without a gla.s.s, nor could the lookout."
"Watch for a torpedo," Dan directed, "although I don"t believe he"ll try at such a distance in his position."
This guess proved correct, for the "Prince" continued on her way for fully five minutes after that without further sign from the submarine.
That very fact made Dalzell impatient.
"Confound the Hun!" he growled. "If he won"t try for me, then I"ll coax him!"
Accordingly the "Prince"s" engines were stopped. As soon as headway ceased, the seeming tramp appeared to drift helplessly on the waves.
Dan"s next move was to order men to run over the decks and the superstructure as though making repairs.
"Just what do you figure the Hun will think has happened to you?" Darrin asked.
"He"ll have to do his own guessing," Dan rejoined. "I"m not going to help him solve the puzzle. But surely something must have happened to us."
For a few minutes nothing was seen, in any quarter, of the enemy craft.
At last, however, a glimpse was caught of a periscope to starboard.
"He"s trying to figure us out," Dan chuckled. "I hope we don"t look good enough for him to waste a torpedo!"
His hand at the engine-room telegraph, Dan waited, while Ensign Stark watched that periscope through his gla.s.s.
"There goes the periscope out of sight," announced the watch officer, presently.
A full ten minutes pa.s.sed. Then sight of the periscope was picked up once more, this time closer in.
"You"ve got him guessing, at the least," Dave smiled.
"Yes, but I"m still hoping he won"t guess "torpedo,"" was Dalzell"s response. "Stand by, gunners!"
"There comes the conning tower," Stark announced.
"He"s going to gun us, then," Dan concluded. He waited, standing almost on tiptoe, until the gray back of the sea monster thrust itself up through the water.
"Back with the ports! Let him have it, starboard battery!" Dan called to the waiting naval gunners.
Their officer had the range and all was ready. Two sh.e.l.ls splashed in the sea just short of the submersible, the third just beyond it.
"Second round!" Dan bellowed from the bridge.
Profiting by their margins of error the gunners this time fired so true that one sh.e.l.l landed on the gray back forward, the other aft. The hits were glancing, so the enemy was not put out of business.
The next instant a puff of smoke left the enemy"s forward gun. No bad shooting, that, for the forward gun of the "Prince"s" starboard battery was promptly knocked from its mounting. Four men went down as the sh.e.l.l exploded.
"Two killed, sir!" came the swift report from the deck. The others, wounded, were a.s.sisted below. The sh.e.l.l had done further damage, for a big fragment had knocked to bits one of the sliding port doors.
Dan signalled for speed ahead, swung around, and at the same time ordered raised for instant work a machine gun that nestled in the bow of the "Prince."
"Let the enemy have it!" called Dalzell.
Straight at the submarine Dan dashed, throwing the spray high around the bows. The machine gunners, quickly getting sight, kept a steady stream of bullets striking against the enemy"s hull, despite the fact that the range was constantly shifting. This keeping of the range was not difficult when shots were fired continuously, for the enemy was near enough for the officer in charge of the piece to tell by splashes of water when any of the bullets went wild.
"He won"t dive now, but if he does, it will suit me just as well," Dan chuckled. "That old hull must be a sieve now."
Two torpedoes were discharged at the oncoming "Prince." One of these missed the ship narrowly. The other struck, glancingly, on the port side, forward, and disappeared without exploding.
By now the submarine was doing some maneuvering of its own. Its forward and after guns were discharged whenever possible, but the sh.e.l.ls failed to land, until the "Prince," still managing to keep on, was within three hundred yards, and bent on ramming the enemy craft.
Over the bridge screamed a sh.e.l.l, pa.s.sing so close that Dan and Dave ducked involuntarily.
Crash! There was a ripping of metal, a black smudge of smoke soon settling over everything, and the "Prince"s" smokestack was gone, clipped off within seven feet of the point where it emerged through the deck.
Then with a quick turn of the steering wheel the "Prince" was sent crashing into the long, low, gray hull. From close to the water came the yells of the Hun crew as they scrambled up through the conning tower hatchway.
On pa.s.sed the "Prince," making a wide sweep and coming back again. The submersible had already sunk from sight, leaving but few of her men struggling on the surface of the water.
By the time that the "Prince" had lowered a boat some of the Germans had sunk. Only three men were rescued and hauled in.
Lined up on the spar deck of the steamship these proved to be the second-in-command and two seamen.
"It"s an outrage to deceive us in the manner that you did," angrily declared the German officer, in English.
"Take that matter up with the a.s.sa.s.sins" Union," Dan jeered. "On this cruise I"ve heard other German officers call it an outrage. It appears to me that you Germans reserve the right to commit all the outrages."
"Then you"ve met other submarines?" scowled the young officer.
"This part of the sea must be pretty clear of the pests, at the rate we"ve been going," Dan announced, cheerfully. "We had a lot of prisoners, too, but you"ll find the brig empty now, for we transferred them."
"The brig?" demanded the German officer. "What have I to do with that?"
"It will be your lodging," Dan informed him. "Also your play yard."
"I refuse to go there!" exclaimed the enemy officer, indignantly.