But Jack Benson, though she made him feel inwardly at odds with himself, thought more of his duty than of anything else.
"I am very sorry--awfully sorry, Mlle. Nadiboff. But won"t you understand that what you ask is wholly impossible?"
"Good-bye, then!" she said, resentfully, though gently, half turning from him.
"You"ll shake hands, won"t you?" asked Jack, holding out his own right hand.
"Perhaps, after I have talked with you on sh.o.r.e--when we meet again,"
she replied, a bit distantly. Then she turned to Williamson as her boat came in close alongside. "Your hand, please. I am afraid I may slip."
Williamson helped that most attractive young woman down over the side, lifting his cap after he had seen her safe aboard the rowboat. As the harbor craft veered off, Captain Jack Benson lifted his cap with all courtesy. Mlle. Sara Nadiboff bowed to him rather coldly.
"I suppose," sighed Jack, to himself, as he turned away, "a woman can"t begin to understand why we must be so secret aboard a submarine craft that all the naval men in the world would like to know about. If she only could understand!"
Had Benson been able to guess just how well the handsome young spy did understand, and how much she had hoped to learn through appealing to his interest in her, he would have been furious at the thought of his own great simplicity.
"Your charming partner of last night was rather disappointed," observed Hal Hastings.
"Yes; she must feel that I have used her mighty shabbily," Jack responded. "I am afraid she won"t forgive me."
"Oh, well, after a few days you"ll never see her again," murmured Hal.
"Just because a girl is pleasant--and pretty--one can"t forget all the orders that he"s working under."
Captain Jack Benson talked to himself in about the same strain, yet he couldn"t wholly get over the notion that he had been--though helplessly--rude to a woman.
"You won"t need me on deck any more, will you, sir?" asked Williamson, saluting.
"No; I shall be on deck," Jack replied, returning the salute. "Very likely Mr. Hastings will be here with me, for that matter."
Soon after the machinist had gone below Eph Somers returned to the deck.
"I"ve been posting that Kimono," Eph explained.
"Kamanako," laughed Captain Jack.
"Oh, it"s all the same to me," sighed Eph. "To my untrained ear all j.a.panese names sound alike."
"Whatever you do," warned Jack, "don"t, hurt the poor fellow"s feelings by calling him Kimono."
"Why not?"
"Well, the j.a.panese are a proud and sensitive race.
"Suppose they are?"
"Do you know what "Kimono" means, Eph?"
"Haven"t even a guilty suspicion."
"It"s the j.a.panese name for a woman"s dress."
"Wow!" muttered Somers. "I shall surely have to, forget "Kimono," then.
What do you call his truly name?"
"Kamanako," Jack responded, and spelled it. Eph wrote the name down on a slip of paper, saying:
"Thank you, Jack. I"ll try to commit this name to memory. I don"t want to hurt the feelings of a sensitive little fellow. It would be a shame to have to punch him if he felt insulted and made a pa.s.s at me."
"Punch him, eh?" laughed Jack in genuine enjoyment. "Eph! Eph! Don"t make any false start like that!"
"What are you talking about?" questioned Somers.
"Don"t make the mistake, at any time, Of trying to punch that j.a.panese."
"Trying to?" gasped Somers. "Say, if I made a swing at that light colored little chocolate drop, do you think I"d make a false pa.s.s and hit my own nose?"
"You might be lucky if nothing worse happened," grinned Jack. "Eph, did you never hear of the j.a.panese jiu-jitsu?"
"What"s that?" demanded young Somers. "Slang name for something else in the j.a.p wardrobe?"
"No; it"s the j.a.p way of fighting," Captain Benson explained. "And you want to remember, Eph, that"s it"s a mighty sudden system, too. It hits like lightning. When the smoke clears away you see a little j.a.panese bowing over you, and apologizing for having rudely tipped you over."
"And little Cabbage-Jacko could do that?" Eph grinned, incredulously.
"Say, it"s wrong to tell me such funny things when I have a cracked lip."
"All right," sighed Jack. "But at least you"ve been warned."
Truth to tell, the young submarine commander wasn"t much worried about Eph"s deliberately provoking any fistic encounter with a fellow much smaller than himself. In the first place, the carroty-haired boy wasn"t quarrelsome, unless actually driven into a fight. At all times Somers was too manly to take out wrath on anyone merely up to his own shoulder height.
Nearly an hour later Jack Benson stepped through into the conning tower; then moved down the spiral staircase.
His rubber-soled deck shoes made no noise. Thus it happened that the young submarine commander came upon the new steward most un expectedly, and without being seen by the little, brown man.
"Kamanako--you scoundrel!" shouted the young captain, beside himself with sudden wrath.
For the j.a.panese, wholly absorbed in his present task, had deftly removed the gauge from the midships submergence apparatus, and was now dissecting the gauge itself, eyeing the parts with the knowing look of an expert.
At sound of the captain"s voice Kamanako wheeled calmly about, holding up the gauge. The smile on the face of the j.a.panese was childlike and bland.
"This very queer thing," he murmured. "What for you use it--thermometer."
"No," retorted Jack Benson, frigidly, eyeing the detected one. "It"s a barometer, and it shows which way a meddler blows in!"
"I don"t understand," remarked the j.a.panese, looking perplexed.
"Then I"ll help you to understand. First of all, put that gauge down on the table!"
Kamanako did so, then made a little bow.