The chase seemed to be aware that it was a case of now or never. I was catching up with it fast; I was able to mark its course by the broken water churned up by its propeller; when, all at once, I saw it rise with the swift motion of a bird.
I had no alternative but to do the same.
As I emerged upon the surface I found my boat in the very center of the full glare of a search-light which lit up the whole scene with dazzling radiance.
Fresh from the depths below, where all had been dark, my eyes fairly blinked in the sudden splendor of light.
Then, for what might have been from three to five seconds, I saw everything that pa.s.sed.
The foremost vessels of the Russian fleet had already gone past the group of drifting trawlers. One large cruiser was pa.s.sing within a stone"s-throw of the nearest fishing-boat, and the English fishermen were playfully holding up some of their freshly-caught fish, as though offering it to the Russian sailors.
Another line of warships was coming up behind, with its search-lights thrown out in front.
And then, right across the range of lights, and in a straight line between the Russian battleships and the English smacks, I saw the phantom torpedo boat pa.s.s deliberately, as high out of the water as she could show.
What happened next took place so swiftly, and with such confusion that I cannot pretend to describe it with accuracy.
Shouts rang out on some of the Russian ships, the submarine headed around as though to seek refuge among the trawlers, and then a gun was fired, and a cannon-ball struck the water within a few feet of me.
All at once, it seemed to me, and as though by some preconcerted plan, half the ships of the Baltic Fleet opened fire on the English fishermen, who seemed too surprised and horrified to do anything. I saw ball after ball crash into one luckless smack, which quickly began to fill and sink. But, generally speaking, the marksmanship of the Russians was too wild for the firing to have serious effect.
As soon as I realized that I had become a mark for the Russian guns I sank beneath the surface. It is no doubt this voluntary move on my part which has given rise to the belief cherished by some of the officers of the Baltic Fleet, and indorsed by Admiral Rojestvensky, that a torpedo boat was sunk by their fire.
But I knew that the ma.s.sacre--for it was nothing less--would go on as long as the other submarine remained on the surface, mixing among the luckless fishing boats with the deliberate intention of drawing on them the Russian fire.
I marked her course, put my engines to their fullest speed one more, and rushed after her.
This time my coming was not watched by the hostile commander. Like Admiral Rojestvensky, he may have believed that my boat had been sunk by the ball which had come so close. Or else, perhaps, in his exultation at having brought about an event which seemed to make war inevitable, he had forgotten his former fears.
But the truth will never be known.
I brought my own boat right under the demon craft, and then, tilting her up at a sharp angle, rammed the other in the center of her keel.
There was a concussion, a m.u.f.fled sound of tearing iron, and as I backed away at full speed astern, I saw the waters of the North Sea pour through a long jagged rent in the bottom of the doomed submarine, and watched her go down staggering like a wounded vulture through the air.
The shock of the collision had brought Orloff and the rest of my crew running aft.
"An accident," I explained coolly. "I have sunk some boat or other in the dark."
The men exchanged suspicious glances.
"It was the other submarine, sir," said Orloff, still preserving his respectful tone. "Will you permit us to see whether it is possible to save any of the crew?"
"Do as you please," I returned, leaving the helm. "My work here is done, and I am ready to go back."
I intended them to think I referred to the attack on the fishing-boats. The cannonade died away as I spoke.
We went down through the water to where the wrecked submarine was lying half over on her side. Some frightened faces peered at us out of the upper portholes, where a supply of air still lingered.
It was impossible to do anything for them down there without being swamped ourselves. We could only invite them by signs to forsake their own craft and let us carry them up to the surface where it would be safe for us to take them inside.
In order to receive them on our upper deck we circled slowly around to the opposite side of their vessel. And there I beheld a sight which will haunt me for years to come.
The whole side of the submarine had been wrenched open, revealing the interior of the cabin. And on the floor, lying in the peaceful att.i.tude of one who had just resigned herself to sleep, I beheld the drowned form of the beautiful, desperate, perhaps wicked, but unhappy, woman from whose mad love I had fled.
So, in the midst of the wild North Sea, in their strange coffin, the bones of Sophia, Princess Yernoloff, lie and rock on the incessant tides that sweep across the Dogger Bank.
_Requiescat in pace!_
As our boat, laden with the rescued survivors, shot up again to the surface, I felt a noosed rope drawn tightly around my throat and heard the voice of Orloff hiss in my ear,
"I arrest you in the name of the Kaiser!"
CHAPTER x.x.xIV
THE FAMILY STATUTE
My task is done. At last the reader knows all that ever will be known--all there is to know, in short--concerning the tragedy of the North Sea.
My personal adventures can possess little interest after the all-important transactions I have had to describe. But in case there should be a reader here and there who is good enough to feel any curiosity as to my fate, I will briefly tell what followed on my arrest.
My revolver was taken from me and I was conducted under a strict guard back to Kiel.
Off the mouth of the Ca.n.a.l we were boarded by a despatch-boat flying the German naval ensign, and a police officer with three men took me off the submarine.
The first proceeding of my new captor was to handcuff me. He then warned me,
"If you speak a single word to me or any one else till you are in the imperial presence, my orders are to shoot you through the head."
I nodded. I had as little wish to speak as the Emperor could have to let me. My thoughts were busy with the memory of the woman of whose tragic death I had been the unwitting cause, and with the measures that remained to be taken to extenuate, so far as extenuation was possible, the fatal action of the Baltic fleet.
As for myself, I can say truly that I had become almost indifferent to what was in store for me. My feeling toward the unfortunate Princess had not been such as that which makes a man desire a woman for his wife; it had not deserved the name of love, perhaps; and it was certainly free from any taint of a less n.o.ble pa.s.sion.
Nevertheless it had been a powerful sentiment, colored and strengthened by my knowledge of her love for me.
Sophia had loved me. She had saved my life. And I had taken hers in return.
Must I accuse myself of weakness for feeling as if happiness for me were over, and the best fate I could wish would be to lie there beside my victim on the lonely Dogger sands?
When I came before Wilhelm II. he was not in the Hall of the Hohenzollerns, indulging his vein of extravagant romance, but in his private cabinet and in his most stern and business-like mood.
"Give the prisoner a chair, and wait outside," his majesty commanded briefly.
I sat down, still handcuffed, and the guards withdrew.