DREADNOUGHTS OF THE DOGGER (continued 2)

"Wait a bit, sir," urged Mark. He stooped and quickly took off his boots and stockings. "Let me go along and have a close look at it."

"No, I can't let you," objected the commander. "It's too dangerous."

"Then let one of the men come with me, sir," Mark suggested, not at all alarmed.

Before he could be stopped, he had slipped past the men and was making his way along the wet and slippery platform. Mr. Desmond, also in bare feet, went after him. They reached the place where the mine was lodged. The horns of the deadly machine were fortunately all pointed outward. The mooring line of flexible wire rope had been caught as the submarine rose to the surface and was securely fixed in the hydroplane bearings, held by its own weight and the weight of the sinker.

Mark went down on his hands and knees and examined the thing most carefully, seeing exactly how it was held, calculating how it would fall when released, estimating how it would be kept in position while the mooring-line was being severed. All his scout-craft was exercised. He looked round at the sub-lieutenant.

"We shall manage all right, sir," he declared calmly. "We want a couple of hammocks to pack round the base of the mine for a fender, a strong man with a crowbar to hold it from slipping, while another with a sharp file and a pair of pliers cuts through the mooring warp. When it's cut, you submerge the ship a couple of feet, let go, and the mine will float off. Then the gunner can fire at it and explode it. Do you understand, sir? Excuse my making these suggestions; but I've had a lot to do with handling explosive contact-mines during the last week."

His directions were followed in every detail. In half an hour the work was done without mishap, and the submarine and her crew were saved. The mine, released from its sinker, floated with its rounded top and horns above the surface. The ship stood off, her fourteen-pounder quick-firing gun was raised from its chamber, and the gunner's skill brought about the explosion.

Late in the afternoon of that same day the H29 appeared abreast of Alderwick Knoll. Darby Catchpole saw her from the cliff. Watching her through his telescope, he made out that the flag flying from her mast bore the sign of the skull and crossbones, and by this he knew that she had been in action and had come out victorious.

CHAPTER X.

DARBY CATCHPOLE'S DISCOVERY.

"I expect she has been putting a torpedo into some German mine-layer," said Darby, speaking to Constable Challis, who stood beside him. "It's the H29."

"Ah!" nodded Constable Challis, "that's the submarine that Lieutenant Ingoldsby's in command of, isn't it? I wish I'd known when I saw his aunt, Mrs. Daplin-Gennery, along the parade just now."

Turning to see if that lady were still in sight, he saluted an elderly gentleman who was hobbling past with the aid of two sticks and with a folded newspaper under one arm.

"Good-evenin', Mr. Croucher," he said. "Any news in the evenin' newspaper, sir?"

"Worse and worse," responded Mr. Croucher, coming to a stop. "Liège has fallen. It will be Namur next, and then Paris. France hasn't a chance. Neither has Russia." He gazed searchingly across the sea. "And then, if the enemy's ships slip out from the Kiel Canal, we're doomed."

"You think so, sir?" questioned Challis, easing the collar of his tunic as if it choked him.

"Think so?" cried Mr. Croucher almost resentfully. "I know! There is nothing more certain. Don't you make any mistake, constable. We've lived long enough in a fool's paradise. I tell you, the Germans have been preparing for this for years and years, only awaiting their chance. And they've got it, now. Nothing can stop them—nothing! Look how they're sweeping through Belgium! Those siege guns of theirs are simply awful. No fortress can resist them, and their naval guns are even greater. What our people have been thinking of over here I don't know. They don't seem to realise our danger. Why, we've no home army worth speaking of, now that the only soldiers we had have gone over to France, leaving us defenceless. We're at the enemy's mercy, Challis."

Constable Challis glanced aside at Darby Catchpole, who was closing his telescope, the submarine having passed beyond sight.

"And how could we hope to prevent their landing on an open coast like this?" pursued Mr. Croucher, bending forward on the support of his two sticks. "I tell you, if their ships break through the cordon of our fleet, we're doomed."

"Indeed, sir?" said Challis with composure. "I wasn't reckonin' on the Germans comin' over here to Haddisport, sir. How will they land their cavalry and artillery through shoal water? They can't bring transport liners across Alderwick Sands."

"Liners?" repeated Mr. Croucher. "Who spoke of liners? They've got hundreds and thousands of flat-bottomed barges lying in the shallows behind the Frisian Islands, ready to be filled with troops and towed over here and beached. They don't need any liners."

Darby Catchpole here ventured to intervene. "And are our Dreadnoughts and cruisers going to hang back while the enemy troops are crossing, sir?" he inquired. "Won't our submarines have a chance?"

"Strictly between ourselves," observed Constable Challis, "I don't believe that a single German soldier will ever set foot in England, except as a prisoner of war."

"Nonsense, Challis, nonsense!" retorted Mr. Croucher. "I've no patience with such childish hopefulness. We're at war against the greatest army the world has ever known, and we're not prepared for it. The Germans will treat us just as they are now treating the Belgians. We've got no army capable of facing them. Even our navy is weaker than it ought to be. The Germans have their Dreadnoughts as well as we, and quite as powerful. They've got crowds of them, and——"

"Not like the Iron Duke," Challis interrupted. "Not like the Queen Elizabeth or the Lion. What about our 13.5 and 15-inch guns, sir?"

"Our guns are not much good against explosive mines and submarines," rejoined Mr. Croucher. "Look what the enemy have done already with their mines! Catchpole, here, can tell you about the loss of the Atreus. And now one of their submarines has sunk another cruiser—the Pathfinder. Didn't you read about it in the paper? They've got their spies everywhere, too. They know what we're doing as well as we know it ourselves! Spies, Challis? Why——" He lowered his voice as he glanced along the cliff to the turrets and gables of Sunnydene. "I've been watching that house," he went on, mysteriously. "It's supposed to be empty. No postman goes there, no trade-carts stop at the gate, no gardener looks after the grounds. And yet, only yesterday there was smoke from one of the chimneys—puffs of white smoke, long and short. What was the meaning of it? Signals, Challis, signals!"

"Was there any ship passing, to take up the message, sir?" questioned Darby Catchpole.

Mr. Croucher looked at the boy severely.

"Do you think they'd make signals to seagulls?" he asked. "Of course, there were ships—plenty of them—tramps, coasting schooners, fishing boats. Any one of them might take a message over to Heligoland, telling secrets about the movements of our warships. The house is a perfect nest of spies, in the pay of the enemy. It's all very well for them to pretend to have gone away to Germany. But they haven't. Depend upon it they're living in some subterranean chamber, where they've stored arms and munitions of war, lying low there to join the enemy troops when they come over to murder us all. I tell you, we're doomed, Challis—doomed!"

"Strictly between ourselves," said Constable Challis, when the old man had gone beyond hearing, "I'm not so sure he isn't right about Sunnydene. Mrs. Daplin-Gennery declares she's seen Herr Hilliger prowlin' around at night, likewise his son, Max, who's supposed to be drowned. And young Mark Redisham, who's a Sea Scout like yourself, has found out a thing or two in the pigeon-loft. Strictly between ourselves, I may tell you that we made a raid on the place a few nights ago. Somebody had been there in front of us, however, and cleared everything suspicious away. You may take it from me, as that somebody was either Herr Hilliger or his son."

Darby could have said something concerning his own suspicions of a message sent by pigeon post; but he knew that Constable Challis was a gossip, and he held his own counsel. Nevertheless, he thought it in some way his duty as a Sea Scout to keep an eye upon Sunnydene, and he seldom passed the house without glancing up at the windows and the chimneys to see if there were any sign of habitation.

He was beginning to be assured in his belief that there was no real foundation for further suspicion, when, returning one moonlight night along the cliff from the Alderwick Coastguard Station, he saw something which renewed all his doubts.

During his absence, several tramps and coasters had anchored for the night in the roads; for the coastwise navigation lights were not now lighted to guide ships on their way, and general traffic on the sea ceased after dusk.

Amongst other vessels lying in the fairway inside of Alderwick Knoll, one in particular attracted his notice. It was a foreign-looking ketch. The moon was not high, and he could see the vessel plainly outlined against the track of light across the waves.

At night time, one ketch-rigged boat is very much like another; but there was something in the angle of her bowsprit, in the rake of her two masts, as well as in the clumsy lines of her hull which made him almost certain that she was the Thor—the same Dutchman in which Max Hilliger had sailed for Germany hardly more than a fortnight ago. Furthermore, she was anchored in precisely the same spot as on the earlier occasion, directly opposite Sunnydene, and visible from any one of the many front windows. Her riding-light was hung low on her foremast, and there was a second light abaft her mizzen.

Having no pressing need to get home to his supper, Darby lingered, anxious to make certain of the identity of the ketch. He could get into the town as easily by walking along the beach as going by the cliff path or the main road.

For some minutes he stood by the side of a tall gorse bush. Nothing happened. But at length as he watched, the vessel's stern light went out, then reappeared and continued to go in and out with curious regularity.

A person ignorant of the Morse code might have believed that a message was being flashed; but Darby Catchpole knew that it was only that one of the crew was pacing the deck and passing to and fro in front of the lantern.

While he waited in the silence, however, he heard the unmistakable sound of a boat's keel crunching on the shingle. He turned and glanced back at Sunnydene. Only the roof and towers could be seen over the edge of the cliff; but from a small window in the east gable there came a quick flash of light. Was it a signal?

Darby crept upwards a few feet and watched for a repetition of the flash. How long he waited he did not know; but when he stepped back three or four paces he again saw the light and almost laughed aloud when he discovered that it was no more than a reflection of the moon in the glass. Yet it had seemed to move. He was not sure even now that it was not a signal to the ketch.

Wondering if the casement were swinging loose on its hinges, he mounted to the top of the cliff and crossed the road to get the window between him and the light of the moon. An owl flew silently over the tops of the intervening fir trees. The house seemed indeed to be deserted. The idea that there still were alien enemies living in it was, after all, ridiculous, and it was only a waste of time to hang around the place any longer.

Beyond the long front garden wall was a pathway leading amongst the gorse and bracken to the main road. Darby determined to take this way back to the town.

He turned into the dark shadows of the path; but stopped abruptly, hearing the click of a gate latch. Some one was coming out by the side gate of Sunnydene. Quick footsteps were approaching, rustling in the dry bracken. He drew back and looked out from his ambush to see a cloaked figure dart past him in the clear light of the moon.

"Max!"

Darby leapt forward, clutching at a wing of the cloak. But it was wrenched violently away, and the hand beneath it was flung out, striking him a blow in the face that sent him reeling to the ground, while Max Hilliger, with a tin case full of maps and charts under his arm, stole downward to the beach.

CHAPTER XI.

THE ESCAPE.

Max Hilliger had not waited to ascertain who it was that had leapt out upon him from the shadows.

Against the light of the moon he had caught a glimpse of a Sea Scout's flat-topped cap, and the young voice that had uttered his name was no doubt the voice of one of his former companions of the Lion Patrol, who had been lurking in ambush to detain him, and perhaps bring about his arrest.

Max could only believe that his assailant was Mark Redisham, who lived near, and who had already shown inconvenient vigilance against him.

Mark Redisham had by some means intercepted the pigeon with the message which he, Max, had sent to his father from on board the Minna von Barnhelm. He had dared also to enter the pigeon-loft at Sunnydene, and perhaps to examine these special maps and charts that were now going over to Germany.

"Yes," Max ruminated as he made his way down the slopes of the cliff towards the beach, "it could only have been Mark Redisham. But whoever it was, I have given him a stinging knockdown blow that he won't forget in a hurry!"

By paths well known to him, he reached the foot of the cliff, and started off across the grassy denes, taking cover in the hollows and in the shadows of the gorse bushes, tightly gripping the tin case of charts under his arm and the small bag which he carried in his left hand. His right hand went to his belt, where there was a loaded revolver.

"If he'd shown fight," he reflected, fingering the weapon, "I might have used this. But it's a good thing I didn't. The noise would have alarmed the whole neighbourhood, and the Tommies on sentry-go along the beach would have nabbed me."

He knew that there were armed sentries on the beach. Since the beginning of the war, the whole of the east coast of Great Britain had been patrolled and watched at night by men in khaki with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets.

He was running the risk even now of being seen and made to give an account of himself. It was for this reason that he was so careful to take cover and to make no betraying sound as he went at Scouts' pace towards the sea.

For himself he had no fear, excepting that, if caught, he would be compelled to explain the compromising contents of his bag and the tin canister. It was the men in the waiting boat about whom he was anxious. They were Germans, and although one of them, Hermann Körner, could speak excellent English, yet the others might easily betray themselves as foreigners and enemies.

When he reached the higher ridges of sand that intervened as a natural barrier between the beach and the level grass land, he went down on his elbows and knees and crept over the loose sand until he could look down upon the foreshore. He had come out, as he had intended to do, directly opposite one of the groins of black timber that reared their protecting walls across the beach. The deep-driven piles at the near end were covered with sand; at the far end they were washed by the tide. Many a time had Max dived into the deep water from the end of this same groin. As he looked at it searchingly now, he distinguished the dark shape of the boat against the blackness. It was about fifty yards away from him, with only an open slope of sea sand and shingle between. In a few moments he might be seated in the boat, when the rowers would push off.

But on that stretch of moonlit beach two figures had suddenly appeared. They were striding quickly towards the boat. He could see the moonshine glinting on their bayonets, and hear their heavy tread on the sand. One of them lowered his rifle, with a hand on the lever, as he called out a loud challenge to the boat:

"Who comes there?"

Max Hilliger's plan was working just as he had hoped. A tall man stood up from the boat and strode towards the two sentries.

"Friends!" he answered. And Max recognised the voice of Hermann Körner. "It's all right, boys."

The patrol saw only indistinctly that he wore the uniform of a naval officer. Never doubting that he was British, they drew to a halt in front of him.

"We've got strict orders not to let anybody come ashore," one of them said.

"Yes, well," was the ready response, "you do your duty. But I have my duty also. I come ashore from ze revenue schooner out there. I report something. Listen!" He had seen their regimental badges in the moonlight, and noticed that one wore a corporal's stripe. "You are not local men," he went on; "you are probably strangers on the coast." He pointed to the cliff. "What sort of peoples live in the third house?" he questioned. It was Major Redisham's house which he indicated. "You don't know? Well, I recommend you keep a watch on it. Half an hour ago there was signals flashed from one of ze upper windows. It is well you go up and make inquiry into the matter."

The two men in khaki were now standing with their backs to the groin, beyond which Max Hilliger was crawling stealthily to the boat.

"Do you say they're alien spies, signallin' to some ship out at sea?" the corporal asked.

The stranger shrugged his shoulders in a way which to any one suspicious must at once have betrayed that he was a foreigner.

"Such is my impression, corporal," he answered, watching Max Hilliger step into the boat. "And knowing that there was a military patrol here, naturally I come ashore to warn you. Good night."

They waited until he had returned to his companions and pushed off. Then they crossed the denes together, and climbed the cliff path to the suspected house.

Pushing open the gate, they entered the drive, where they were confronted by Mark Redisham and Darby Catchpole. Mark's greatcoat covered his naval clothes. Darby wore his Sea Scout's uniform, and he was dabbing his swollen nose with a blood-stained handkerchief.

"Signal lights have been seen flashing from the windows of this house," began the corporal.

"Who said so?" demanded Mark. "I'm sure no light of any sort has been seen. All the windows are thickly curtained. You're making a mistake."

"Oh, no, we're not!" insisted the corporal. "A naval officer from the revenue ship out there came ashore to tell us about it." He indicated the Thor.

"There's no revenue boat out there," declared Darby Catchpole. "That ship's not even British. You've been hoodwinked." He turned to Mark. "Do you see how the trick has been played?" he cried. "It's quite plain. While one of the boat's crew, speaking English, came ashore and kept the patrol off the scent, Max Hilliger slipped into the boat unseen! What's to be done?"

"If Max has gone aboard the ketch, we can't do much more than we've done already," declared Mark. "I've telephoned to the naval base, telling them to send out and capture the ketch while she's still at anchor. But are you certain sure that it was Max Hilliger you saw?"

Darby dabbed his handkerchief to his nose, which was still bleeding.

"What's the good of asking such a question?" he objected warmly. "I saw him as clearly as I see you now. He rounded on me when I called his name, and then fetched me a blow in the face that sent me sprawling. I saw what he carried, too—a long sort of tin box under his left arm and a bag in his left hand."

"The charts!" Mark Redisham ejaculated. "The charts!" Then to the corporal he added: "It's clear you've been had. The men in that boat were Germans, and a young German has escaped with them, taking a lot of charts and maps that will be no end of help to the enemy if they should attempt to land an invading army on this coast. That chap who kidded you about signal lights only wanted to draw your attention off the boat for a minute. You wouldn't have committed a crime if you had put a bullet into him. Haven't you been ordered not to let any boat come ashore?"

"Yes, of course," admitted the corporal. "But he was in uniform. He looked and talked like a British naval officer."

"Anyhow, you'll have to report the matter to your colonel," rejoined Mark.

The corporal seemed to have a sudden inspiration.

"How am I to know what you're tellin' me is true?" he demanded. "Who are you? What are you doin', spyin' round out here at this time of night?"

"I am the son of Major Redisham, who is now with his regiment in France," Mark answered. "I am, myself, in the Royal Naval Reserve, serving the King. My chum, here, is a Sea Scout. If that isn't enough, you can go up to the house and see my mother."

"Listen!" cried Darby Catchpole excitedly. "The ketch is lifting her anchor! She's making sail! Come along—quick! Don't stand jawing here."

The patrol shouldered their rifles and followed the two boys down to the beach. There came to them a curious, spluttering sound, like that of a motor-car being started. Mark Redisham stood still, listening and watching. The Thor's sails were up, but there was very little wind to fill them. Nevertheless, she was moving. There was a commotion of water under her stern.

"She's got petrol engines!" Mark declared. "Look! Look, she's off!"

The corporal, realising the gravity of his former omission, now attempted to repair it. He threw himself forward on a knoll of sand, and levelling his rifle, took aim and fired at the escaping ketch.

CHAPTER XII.

A FLEET IN HIDING.

Standing at the vessel's stern beside the steersman, Max Hilliger saw the flash and heard the sharp report. He laughed. There was a second shot. A bullet whistled over his head and tore through the canvas of the mizzen sail.

"Hard a-starboard!" he ordered; and when she turned with her bow to the north-east, he added: "Steady!"

He glanced astern, taking his bearings by the familiar landmarks.

"Be careful, my friend," said Lieutenant Körner, at his side. "There is the sandbank."

"That is why I am careful," returned Max. "We're going to cross it. It's our only safe way. If you keep to the channel, you must either risk a shot from the naval gun on Haddisport pier, or else run up against the destroyer anchored off Buremouth. I'm going to take her across the shoal, through a gap that's used only by the lifeboatmen. Leave it to me, Hermann."

It was a feat in seamanship which no local fisherman, familiar with the dangers of the Alderwick shoal, would have believed possible. But Max Hilliger knew every fathom over the sunken bank, and he brought the boat through so skilfully that no one on board even guessed how narrow was their escape from disaster.

When at length she was safe beyond the reef, her course was set and she sped along, driven by her powerful motor.

The sea was clear of all traffic during the night, and there were no ships in sight to notice her unusual speed or to question her business. And if there were mine-fields to fear, those on the British side of the North Sea were known to Max Hilliger, while Lieutenant Körner knew equally well how to avoid those sown by the Germans in their own waters. So they went on in safety.

On the following morning, when they were off the Dogger Bank, heavy rain was falling. A fleet of fishing craft at work loomed dimly through the mist. As a precaution against suspicion, Körner stopped the petrol engine, depending upon the sails. The rain mist was still thick at mid-day, when, as from behind a curtain, a squadron of British battle cruisers and light cruisers appeared, accompanied by a patrol flotilla of destroyers and submarines. They passed within a mile of the Thor, and challenged her by signal. The Dutch colours were run up to her masthead and she was allowed to go on unmolested.

During the short time the warships were in sight, Max Hilliger was busy taking notes concerning them. With the help of an English book of reference, he was able to identify each one of them and to discover all particulars as to her speed, tonnage, and armament. He noted with particular interest that one of the destroyers was the Lupin, by which he had himself been rescued when the Atreus was mined, and that another was the Levity, upon which, as he had lately learned, Rodney Redisham was serving as a midshipman.

"Ah!" he regretted, gazing at the formidable bulk of the nearest battleship, "if this tub were only your submarine, Hermann, how you could distribute your torpedoes and send every one of them to the bottom! Look at their great guns—as great even as some of our own! We shall not easily beat them in a pitched battle. And they outnumber our High Sea Fleet. It must be by our submarines that we conquer them. Hermann, I want you to get me on board your submarine. Then we can get about the seas, sinking every English warship that we can find!"

"Very well, my friend," returned Lieutenant Körner. "For you it will not be difficult. It needs only that you mention the ambition to your uncle, Admiral von Hilliger, and the thing is settled. Is it not so?"

It was to Admiral von Hilliger's flagship, the armoured cruiser Schiller, that Max was now bound. She was known to be lying behind the island of Heligoland, protected by the fortress and by the mine-fields of the Bight.

Lieutenant Körner made a course by secret passages through the mines and under the lee of the Frisian Islands, and it was just before sunset that the Thor entered the estuary of the Elbe and came into the midst of the Kaiser's High Sea Fleet.

Max Hilliger had constantly heard and read of the huge navy, the construction of which had played so prominent a part in Germany's plan of world-dominion; but his dreams had never presented anything to compare with the vast number and might of the warships now arrayed before his wondering eyes.

They stretched in an almost unbroken line across from Cuxhaven to Brunsbuttel—battleships which appeared to him far more powerful than any of the British Dreadnoughts that he had seen passing in the distance from the cliffs of Haddisport; armoured cruisers that looked like impregnable floating fortresses; light cruisers built for speed; and a vast multitude of destroyers, submarines, mine-layers, troopships, and armed liners.

His heart seemed to swell within him in patriotic pride. This was the fleet designed for the conquest of Britain, and he could not imagine how its purpose could fail.

Believing that the sea power of Great Britain was doomed to be broken, and that the future of the Fatherland was fated to be one of shining glory and greatness, he was thankful that he was a German; thankful that it was now to be his privilege to fight for her in the conquest of her worst enemy.

Lieutenant Körner steered the ketch to her anchorage beside his submarine at the rear of the main fleet; and, in the deepening dusk of a rainy evening, Max was conveyed in a motor-launch to Admiral von Hilliger's flagship.

The admiral was at dinner and could not be interrupted even to receive his nephew from England, but Max found friends amongst the junior officers, and at length he was admitted.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE GERMAN ADMIRAL.

In the admiral's state-room, Max quickly won his uncle's favour by producing his collection of special maps and charts—the same collection which Mark Redisham had discovered in the pigeon-loft at Sunnydene.

On the charts of the North Sea were clearly shown not only the depths in fathoms and the positions of newly-placed buoys and lightships for the guidance of pilots, but also the areas which the British Admiralty had sown with defensive mines.

Admiral von Hilliger examined them with keen scrutiny, stroking his long, fair beard with satisfaction as he observed particular features which were new to him.

"Ja," he nodded, making a mark with his pencil. "We shall use this channel when we go to bombard their fortified coast towns. It is just here that our invading troops can make a landing. You have two and a quarter fathoms of water close up to the beach at low tide—a lonely piece of exposed coast, within easy reach of a railway junction, and three cathedral cities. There are no fortifications to oppose us; and the little English Army is already in France! But first, my dear Max, we shall annihilate their miserable North Sea Fleet. Once we have got rid of their boasted Dreadnoughts and secured command of the seas, the rest will be as simple as eating your breakfast."

"If there is going to be a sea battle, uncle," Max ventured boldly, "I should not like to miss seeing it, and perhaps taking a small part in it."

The admiral shrugged his decorated shoulders and took up the chart of Alderwick Knoll.

"As a holiday entertainment it would be interesting," he responded. "And certainly there are ways in which your knowledge of the enemy may be useful."

"Also my knowledge of submarines," Max added.

"So?" returned his uncle, studying the chart. "And you have the wish to fight under the sea, eh? Well, my dear child, that is perhaps possible! We have many under-sea boats in commission, and many more building, for which we shall require crews. I will arrange it. In the meantime, you will be provided with a midshipman's uniform and remain on board the Schiller. But what is this so carefully prepared chart?"

"It is a reef off the English coast, sir," Max explained, "a place convenient for our submarines to lie safely hidden, to pounce out upon enemy ships and sink them. Also, there is a secret store of petrol buried in the sand dunes quite near. My father has not been idle."

"Good!" said the admiral. "Yes, we shall sink their ships—merchant ships as well as vessels of war. We shall blockade their coasts, and so, stopping their food supplies, starve the contemptible English. But that will be when we have destroyed their battle fleets, as we shall do as soon as they choose to come out from their fortified harbours, where at present they remain in close hiding."

Max Hilliger very well knew that Sir John Jellicoe's Grand Fleet was not in hiding; but he did not wish just now to contradict his uncle. He simply said:

"Some of their cruiser squadrons are nevertheless venturing nearer to our mine-fields than is good for them, sir. To-day, for example, we passed a squadron hardly a score of miles from the south-west of Heligoland."

"Ha!" cried the admiral, growing excited. "So near? Why did you not inform me at once, instead of wasting my time and our opportunity? Already we might have sent out a flotilla of our faithful submarines to torpedo them! A squadron, you say? Of what strength?"

Max produced the notes that he had taken.

"Thunder and lightning!" exclaimed his uncle, at sight of the precise details. And, gathering the charts and the notes, he got into his oilskins and hurried out of the cabin to hold a council of war with several of his fellow admirals and captains on board the cruiser Klopstock.

Max saw no more of him that night; but by the bustle and excitement and incessant noise that kept him from sleeping, he knew that the ship was being prepared for action.

Early in the morning he was awakened by the chunking of the engines and the noisy working of the ammunition hoists. He got up and dressed in his midshipman's uniform and went out to the upper deck. The rain had ceased, but there was a thick mist over the sea, through which he could only dimly make out the cliffs of Heligoland with their concrete battlements and bristling guns.

As the cruiser drew nearer, he could see the forts more clearly, with the naval harbour, from which a large flotilla of destroyers and submarines had just come out. Here the Schiller came to a stop beside other cruisers—the Klopstock with her four tall funnels, the Goethe, the Ariadne, the Coblentz, and the great Derfflinger, with her five pairs of 12-inch guns—while twenty destroyers, accompanied by six submarines, disappeared in the mist on their way out to sea.

On board the Schiller all was cleared for action, everything inflammable was left behind, and the decks were flooded in case of fire, the guns were loaded and the men at their stations all ready for fighting, waiting only for a wireless message to come back from the advance scouts to say that the enemy had been found.

Instead of a Marconi message, there came the distant booming of British 4-inch guns, mingling with the sound of the drums as the bands on the German cruisers played "Der Wacht am Rhein."

"Ha!" cried Admiral von Hilliger, rubbing his hands together as he paced his quarter-deck. "Now we have them!"

A signal was sent out to two of the cruisers, the Klopstock and the Coblentz, which immediately steamed off, to be followed a little later by the Schiller herself and the Ariadne, which took a slightly different direction, in order, as was intended, to take the enemy on the opposite flank and so envelop them.

In the open sea, outside Heligoland, and beyond the area of the German mines, British destroyers and submarines, supported by light cruisers and battle cruisers had for a week past been busily reconnoitring, showing themselves boldly, and inviting the Kaiser's ships to come out. But until this morning the invitation had been ignored.

Now, however, as the flotilla of German torpedo boats sallied forth to give chase to what they supposed was a mere patrol of light craft which they might easily deal with, a strong, picked force of our destroyers, headed by the new light cruiser Athene, dashed out from the mist to cut off the German boats from home and engage them at leisure in the open sea.

The action was begun by the Levity and the Lupin in a running fight, and so well were their 4-inch guns served that one of the enemy destroyers was crippled in trying to escape, and shortly afterwards a second was seen to sink. The Athene manoeuvred to get clear of Hermann Körner's submarine, which was within torpedo range.

Then the German destroyers scattered, drawing back to the mine-field, and to the support of the Klopstock and the Coblentz, which were now coming out.

The Athene, leading the line of destroyers, met the heavy gunfire of the Klopstock, and engaged her at a range of about three thousand yards.

For half an hour the two cruisers fought, the Athene holding her own against a ship more than double her size. She sustained some damage and a few casualties, and the situation was becoming critical when a second British light cruiser, the Sarpedon, steamed up to her support. Three destroyers joined in the attack with their torpedoes, whereupon the German turned tail and disappeared in the mist.

The Athene and the Sarpedon, followed by the destroyers Levity and Lupin, now gave chase to the German Coblentz, and drove her, seriously injured, to the protection of the mine-field. Ten minutes later the armoured cruiser Schiller came out, with Admiral von Hilliger in command, and his nephew, Max, on board.

She at once opened her guns on the Athene and the Sarpedon. Salvo after salvo was directed towards the two British cruisers, but every shell fell short, while many of the Athene's 6-inch shells battered her sides. A division of our destroyers joined in the fray with their deck-guns, and the Levity in particular annoyed the Germans by the accuracy of her aim.

Max Hilliger watched her through a pair of powerful binoculars, and once, when the air was momentarily clear of smoke, he caught sight of Rodney Redisham in a prominent position on her high bridge.

He went up to the admiral.

"Turn your guns on that destroyer, sir," he implored. "Sink her! Sink her!"

CHAPTER XIV.

BRAVE AS A BRITON.

Whether it was that Admiral von Hilliger supposed that his nephew had some vital reason for drawing his attention to the Levity, or that his executive officers had resolved independently to punish this particularly bold and annoying destroyer, it is certain that the Levity became for some minutes a special mark for the Schiller's big guns.

Shells fell around the little vessel like a storm of hail, and many must have hit her but that she remained end on, thus making herself a smaller target. At length one fell between her funnels, crashed through her deck-plates, and exploded in her engine-room, leaving her helpless.

The Athene and the Sarpedon continued to send their 6-inch lyddite shells into the German cruiser, their forward guns firing at the rate of half a dozen rounds a minute.

These two British light cruisers were themselves receiving a large share of the Schiller's fire at long range, and were being constantly aimed at by torpedoes from the enemy submarines and destroyers, while there was always the danger of their running foul of floating mines. They were being hard pressed. Already the Athene had sent out wireless messages to the British battle cruiser squadron in the rear, reporting that she was in need of help.

The German cruiser Klopstock had by this time reappeared from the mist, and was steaming down to join battle. The situation was critical, yet the British ships stood their ground, and a well-placed shell from the Sarpedon smashed the forward bridge of the Schiller and injured her foremost funnel, while another from the Athene burst through her port bulwarks amidships and so damaged her internally that her engines stopped and she was seen to be on fire.

At this moment the four-funnelled Stein loomed out of the fog. The Athene signalled to her consort and the destroyers to withdraw and accompany her to cut off this new enemy cruiser.

All followed her excepting the disabled Levity, which remained rolling helplessly within point blank range of the Schiller's guns. The explosion of the shell in her engine-room had burst one of her main steam-pipes, crippling her for the time. Her own 4-inch guns were served, but her shells fell short. Below decks the men kept grimly at their work in their efforts to repair the damaged machinery, and all the time shells fell fast and thick round the wounded vessel.

"It looks as if we were done for, this time," the commander admitted to one of his lieutenants, as Rodney Redisham mounted to the bridge to give a report from the chief engineer. "We can't live long through this."

"Unless one of the flotilla should return and take us in tow," suggested the lieutenant. "They don't seem to realise that we are crippled, sir."

"I am not going to ask for help, however," the commander resolved. "It would be too risky for one of them to come back now." He lighted a cigarette. "We will just hold on with our flag flying until we sink. Anyhow, we have done our duty."

"The chief engineer says he can't repair the steam-pipe without drawing the fires, sir," Rodney reported.

"Thank you, Redisham," nodded the captain, "We will stick to the ship, but see that every one wears a life collar."

He continued to pace the bridge. The officers stood each at his post waiting for the end. No mercy could be expected from the Germans. The Schiller had now only one small target within range, and although her gunners were aiming badly, yet here and there a sailor dropped wounded by flying shrapnel, and more than one shell burst inboard, wrecking cabins and killing two men.

Ah! Suddenly the Lupin, with magnificent British pluck, was seen bearing down upon the Levity at full speed, little heeding the fact that she was charging into an inferno, and that at any moment a well-placed shot might sink her. She was coming to the help of her sorely-tried consort.

With splendid seamanship she was brought round. Not a shot touched her. She came close alongside. A rope was thrown to the Levity; a hawser was quickly passed and secured. In another minute both destroyers would have been out of danger; but just as the Levity was hauled round broadside on to the German guns, the strained cable snapped.

All seemed over now. There could be no escape for either the stricken Levity or her daring rescuer. The gunlayers on board the Schiller, fearing that they were being baulked of their prey, redoubled their efforts to sink her.

"Every man for himself!" shouted the British commander.

From the Lupin, now standing off, there came a tremendous cheer.

Rodney Redisham, coming up on deck through the splintered companion, heard the cheer repeated, and saw his commander and fellow officers gravely raising their hands aloft in a last farewell salute. He turned and glanced round to the westward, and to his amazement there came plunging out of the mist the giant shape of a British Dreadnought cruiser, flying a vice-admiral's pennant.

It was the Saturn, the first of the battle line.

The mighty 13-inch guns of the cruiser boomed out across the sea, and with the first salvo the Schiller was hit in a vital part. The hail of shells round the two destroyers suddenly ceased. Another hawser was shipped, and the Levity was towed away.

With the battle cruiser squadron the light cruiser squadron also appeared and joined in the confused fighting. The Saturn and her immediate consorts gave chase to the Stein, very quickly sank her, and set the Klopstock on fire. A second of the German destroyers was sent to the bottom, whilst many others were badly damaged.

In the meantime, the Athene and the Sarpedon had driven one of the enemy cruisers, the Coblentz, back towards the Schiller, where she turned and engaged them hotly at long range. Both of the British ships received a good deal of injury themselves before they succeeded in sinking her.

The crippled Schiller was still above water, trying to escape with all the speed which her damaged engines would allow. The Sarpedon gave chase and opened fire upon her at a range of about ten thousand yards.

Admiral von Hilliger replied feebly with his after-turret guns and attempted further to check his pursuer by dropping explosive mines in his wake. But the British ship, with her greater speed, quickly overhauled him and exchanged broadsides with him.

Flames and thick smoke were still rising from the Schiller, when a shell, falling close beside her, sent up a great fountain of water which deluged her decks and extinguished the fire.

Shortly afterwards, a beautifully-placed shot took away two of her funnels, and again she was seen to be on fire. All amidships became a raging furnace; her mainmast fell by the board. Then there was a sudden silence on both sides. It was now only a question of saving lives.

The Sarpedon bore down upon her stricken enemy, going close up to her on the windward side and launching two of her boats.

At close quarters the devastating effect of the British 6-inch lyddite shells was plainly apparent. The German flagship's thickly armoured hull was like a sieve. Her fore-bridge was a tangled mass of ironwork; the wire stays of her foremast were swinging in the air. Her guns were smashed and bent, some looking round corners, some lying on their sides. Her upper decks were in a state of chaos; her fallen funnels and ventilators were red hot, and every boat was burnt. She was sinking in a cloud of smoke and flame and hissing steam.

Unnoticed by any one near, the periscope of a submarine was moving in the midst of the drowning Germans who had jumped into the sea from the doomed cruiser. The submarine was the British H29.

Below, at his post in the conning-tower, Lieutenant Ingoldsby watched all that was going on about him. He had been prepared to send his last remaining torpedo into the Schiller, but this was now unnecessary. He watched the Sarpedon's boats coming to the rescue of the struggling Germans, whom he could not himself attempt to save. He watched the cruiser sinking.

There appeared to be only a very few living beings left on board of her. A couple of officers stood under the wreckage of her fore-bridge. There was a lonely figure on her quarter-deck, dimly visible amid the smoke and flames. He, too, looked like an officer, though little could be seen of his uniform, excepting a broad band of gold on his sleeve. His head was bare. He held his hands pressed to his eyes, as if he were blinded by the smoke, or as if he were unwilling to look upon what little remained of the ship.

Suddenly, while Ingoldsby watched, he saw one of the officers under the bridge climb up by a stanchion and leap over into the sea. The other ran aft into the smoke, disappeared for a moment, and then again was seen staggering along the red hot deck with his cap held over his mouth, dodging in and out amongst the wreckage.

For an instant he stood in hesitation, and Ingoldsby saw that he was only a youth, a midshipman. Then again he ran as with some madly hopeless purpose aft towards the quarter-deck. He was lost in the smoke for a while, but once more he appeared, crawling perilously along the narrow strip of coaming at the edge of the flame-swept deck.

Had the boy wanted to save his own life he might have done so many times by leaping down into the sea. But such most surely was not his design. Lieutenant Ingoldsby understood his intention, and thrilled with admiration as he saw it most bravely fulfilled. Dashing through the smoke, the lad at last reached the officer who had stood alone on the quarter-deck; caught him by the arm, spoke to him imploringly, and then led him gently to the vessel's side. They stood together, an admiral and a midshipman. Together they leapt into the waves.

"About the pluckiest act I've ever witnessed!" declared Lieutenant Ingoldsby. "Desmond, you ought to have seen it."

"Seen what, sir?" Lieutenant Desmond inquired.

"I'll tell you about it afterwards," returned Ingoldsby, still gazing intently into the periscope mirror. "Hullo! She's gone down!"

Just at this juncture, as the Schiller sank, a large German armoured cruiser, coming out of the mist, opened fire upon the Sarpedon, whose two boats were busy picking up survivors. To save his ship, and in obedience to orders he had received to retire, the British commanding officer steamed off, abandoning his two boats with the officer in charge of them, nine seamen, and the prisoners whom they had so far rescued.

Lieutenant Ingoldsby set his electric motor to work and started off to attack the enemy cruiser, but the latter altered course to the northward before the submarine could be brought within torpedo range. Ingoldsby thereupon returned to the boats, emptying his ballast tanks and rising awash close beside them, greatly to the astonishment of their occupants.

He stepped out on the deck of the conning-tower, followed by his sub-lieutenant and quarter-master.

"I'm sorry I haven't got anything like room for the lot of you, sir," he said to the officer in charge of the boats. "What had we better do?"

"We have twenty-five survivors," the other answered, "most of them badly wounded. Three of them are officers. One, indeed, is an admiral. You'd better make sure of him, in any case."

"I think I shall be justified in making sure of my own countrymen first," returned Ingoldsby. "Yourself and your men. That's ten all told. Well, perhaps I can make room for the admiral and his two officers; but no more. You see, we may have to submerge. We can let the rest of them have the boats. I can give them water, biscuits, and a compass, and set them a course back to Heligoland. They're not all of them wounded, are they? Some of them look as if they could work the oars. Which is the admiral?"

He looked across at the farther boat and saw a red-bearded man at the stern lying back with his head resting on the gunwale, while a youth in midshipman's uniform, kneeling at his side, was bathing his eyes with a bit of rag dipped in sea water. Like the rest of the rescued Germans, they were woefully bedraggled and wet, their scorched clothes hanging in tatters.

"Ah!" exclaimed Lieutenant Ingoldsby, recognising the man whom he had seen on the quarterdeck. "It's the same. And that's the boy who saved him. I'm glad you picked them up. Draw the boat alongside and let us get them aboard."

The midshipman turned a wan face towards him, gazed at him with red and swollen eyes, and shrank back.

"Queer!" murmured Lieutenant Ingoldsby in perplexity. "I'm almost certain I've seen that boy before, somewhere!"

He went below to plan how the additions to his ship's company could be accommodated and to send up provisions for the boats. The British sailors were brought on board.

"The admiral will share my cabin," he said. "Bring him down, Desmond."

"He refuses to come, sir," declared Lieutenant Desmond, "or, rather, the middy refuses for him. The middy speaks wonderfully good English."

Ingoldsby, still more puzzled, went back on deck. The admiral was now sitting up in the stern sheets of the boat, blinking his inflamed eyes, and looking exceedingly miserable.

"Won't you come on board, sir?" Ingoldsby invited, speaking in the best German he could muster.

It was the midshipman who answered.

"No," he said. "We will not be indebted to our enemies. It would be better for us to die here and now."

Lieutenant Ingoldsby gave a curious start of recognition and stood staring into the youth's haggard face.

"Max Hilliger!" he cried. "You—here! Why, you were at home in Haddisport only a couple of days ago! How did you come to be aboard a German cruiser—and dressed as an officer, too? You used to be a Scout—an English Sea Scout. You haven't the right to wear the uniform of an officer, even an officer in the German navy."

"I have the right to fight for my own country," Max answered boldly. "And if I wear an officer's uniform, that is my affair and the affair of my uncle, Admiral von Hilliger."

"Ah!" rejoined Ingoldsby. "He is your uncle. is he? That explains. I had forgotten you had an uncle in the Kaiser's service. But you did a jolly plucky thing when you saved him just now, Max; as plucky a thing as I've ever seen. While I watched you doing it I was wishing that you were British. You were really as brave as a Briton. I hope you didn't get badly burnt."

Max glanced downward to his left leg. The bare skin was scorched. His left arm, too, was blistered from elbow to wrist.

"You had better come aboard here and I will give you some dressing," Lieutenant Ingoldsby advised. "Bring Admiral von Hilliger with you. We haven't much accommodation. But we shall not be very long getting across to England."

Max Hilliger frowned.

"I suppose you mean us to go aboard as your prisoners of war?" he said. "Perhaps you could force us, since we are helpless. But you cannot take us all. It would be better if you took some of our severely wounded. My uncle and I very much prefer to stay where we are and to find our own way back to Germany, or die on the way."

"Oh, I'm not going to force you!" returned Lieutenant Ingoldsby. "A submarine is not supposed to carry passengers or to take prisoners. Remain in the boat if you wish. But at least you will not object to our attending to the wounded before we part."

So shockingly hurt were many of the Germans that it seemed almost a hopeless task to give them even ordinary first-aid. But for half an hour or so the British officers and men were occupied in doing the best they could. They were short of bandages, but with true British sympathy for their unfortunate enemies, they stripped themselves of everything but their trousers, and tore up their clothes with which to bind the wounds.

In the circumstances, Lieutenant Ingoldsby could not have been blamed for giving Admiral von Hilliger and his nephew their liberty. But had he foreseen what their freedom was to cost in innocent lives it is probable that he would have acted differently.

CHAPTER XV.

TREASURE TROVE.

"In the very probable event of an invasion," asserted Mr. Croucher, addressing a group of four Sea Scouts who had gathered at the lookout station on the sea-front, "in the very probable event of an invasion, we are totally unprepared and defenceless. As I was saying to Mrs. Daplin-Gennery only the other day, we ought to have big guns stationed at intervals all along the coast. A few newly-enlisted Territorials are billeted in the town; but what good will they be when the Germans come over here in force?"

"They could give the alarm, sir," suggested Ned Quester, whose brother was a Territorial.

"Give the alarm?" repeated Mr. Croucher with contempt. "And what then? No amount of alarm would repel an invading army. We want guns—guns, and men who can handle them. Civilians are not allowed to take up arms. Look at what has happened in Belgium! We ought to have realised long ago that the Germans intended to make war on us. They've been planning it for years. My argument is that we ought to have batteries posted all along the coast."

"Aren't warships, that can move about, as good as fixed batteries, sir?" questioned Darby Catchpole.

"Warships are no good against Zeppelins," declared Mr. Croucher. "Take my word for it, the enemy have got many more airships than we've any idea of; and every one of them capable of carrying a company of soldiers with heavy artillery. Then they have their flat-bottomed barges; hundreds of them, which they will use as transports."

"But we have our battleships and submarines, sir," interposed Mark Redisham, "and it isn't at all likely that the enemy can get past them."

"Don't be too sure, Redisham," urged Mr. Croucher. "Don't be too sure. They can slip past them in a sea mist and land troops here on Haddisport beach. And when they do, we shall be annihilated. It's no good thinking that our dwelling houses are any protection. One shell from a German cruiser, one explosive bomb from a Zeppelin, would smash any of the houses along this esplanade. I wonder people are so callous as to live in houses that are little better than targets to be aimed at from both sea and air!"

Darby Catchpole ran his eye along the exposed dwellings.

"Sunnydene is about the best target of the lot," he smiled. "It would be funny if the enemy were to bombard the property of the brother of one of their own admirals!"

Mr. Croucher shook his head wisely.

"They won't bombard Sunnydene," he affirmed. "Young Max Hilliger, who, it seems, was rescued with his uncle from the Schiller, will see to it that the house is not harmed."

"In that case, Sunnydene would be a safe refuge for us," Mark Redisham declared. "At the first alarm we ought to round up all the women and children and corral them in the grounds."

"The chances are that the Germans would batter Sunnydene to bits in aiming at your own house, Mark," laughed Darby.

"For my own part," resumed Mr. Croucher, "I am getting a man to dig a refuge trench in my back garden. He'd nearly finished it yesterday, only unfortunately in the heavy rain last night the sides fell in for want of supports. The corporation ought to have proper trenches dug on the denes where the inhabitants could fly in case of danger."

"And get killed while they're flying," mischievously suggested Seth Newruck.

"Mrs. Daplin-Gennery is going to have one dug in her kitchen-garden," observed Mark Redisham. "Her gardener has enlisted, however, so we Scouts are going to do a good turn by digging it. Indeed, we are now on our way down to the beach to have a bit of practice and plan out the thing."

"Ah!" said Mr. Croucher, "I expect you'll do it so well that you'll have all the neighbourhood asking you to dig trenches in their gardens. Well, it's for the good of the community. If the War Office and the Admiralty together won't look after us, we must look after ourselves."

Mark got three spades from his own tool shed and borrowed another from Mrs. Daplin-Gennery's chauffeur. Armed with these implements, he and his companions went down to the foot of the cliff.

It was useless to think of digging even an experimental trench in the loose sand of the beach, so they selected a piece of more solid ground between the foreshore and the grass land. They chose the spot almost at random. Even Darby Catchpole did not realise at first how near they were to the groin from which Max Hilliger had escaped into the boat with his case of charts.

Mark Redisham staked out the ground and they began to dig, piling the soil on the side nearest the sea. It was decided that when the trench was deep enough, it should be roofed in with cross planks and brushwood, upon which the soil should be heaped to resist the impact of bombs from the air or shells from the sea; but at present the work was only undertaken as practice in excavation. The cross planks, the sap trench, and the means of entrance and exit would be properly applied when the dug-out came to be made in Mrs. Daplin-Gennery's garden.

They had been digging for about half an hour, when Seth Newruck's spade chipped against something that was neither soil nor stone. He looked down at the thing in wonder, then grabbed at it.

"Darby! Mark!" he cried. "See what I've found! A cigarette case! It's silver!"

His companions all crowded up to him to look at it over his shoulder. Certainly it was a silver cigarette-case, and a very handsome one. There was a monogram engraved in the centre of its chased surface.

"It isn't even tarnished," declared Mark Redisham. in surprise. "It's almost new. It can't have been buried very long. How deep did you find it?"

"Just here," Seth explained, pointing out the spot about two feet down.

"That's queer!" resumed Mark. "I can't understand—unless some one has been digging here before us, quite lately, and dropped it by accident. Some of the Territorials, perhaps."

"Now that I come to think of it," said Darby Catchpole, "the ground did look as if it had been disturbed. There was no grass growing on top."

Mark Redisham had opened the case. It contained three cigarettes, held in place by a band of blue elastic. He took one of them out and examined it.

"I've seen a cigarette like this before," he averred. "They're Egyptian, see! 'Vafiadi, Cairo.' Who was it that I saw smoking one? Not Lieutenant Ingoldsby: not Captain Damant." He looked again at the monogram, and gave a long, low whistle of astonishment. "Oh, I know, I know now! Keep on digging, you chaps," he ordered. "Here you are, Seth. Findings are keepings."

He seized his spade and continued digging until his back ached and the perspiration rolled down his sunburnt cheeks. He moved from place to place in the trench, keeping it at a uniform depth. They had got below the dark soil to the soft sea sand.

"You're making it too wide, Mark," Darby objected.

Mark went down on his knees and began to sniff about.

"Don't you smell something?" he questioned, scratching at the sand with his hands. Then he pulled and tugged at something heavy. "Eureka!" he shouted. "Look here, Darby! Petrol! a tin of petrol! two tins—a whole lot of them!"

Darby leant over from the side of the trench and saw the exposed tops of a number of square red canisters.

"Enough to keep a motor-car going for a year," he declared.

"Yes," added Mark, "or a German submarine for a month."

"Why German?" Darby asked.

Mark laughed.

"Because," he answered, "I don't suppose Herr Hilliger would have been so considerate as to keep a secret store of petrol for the accommodation of his enemies. Yes, you may stare. But even if the letters 'H.H.' on that silver case didn't stand for Heinrich Hilliger, I should still have known that the cigarettes were of the same brand as the remains of one that I found on the floor of his pigeon-loft."

He vaulted out of the trench.

"Newruck and Quester will keep watch here," he said to Darby. "I want you to come along with me to the naval base."

CHAPTER XVI.

THE BOMB-PROOF SHELTER.

Nothing was said in Haddisport concerning the discovery and removal of the secret store of petrol buried in the sand on Alderwick Denes. The reason for the silence was that no one unconnected with the naval base knew anything about the matter.

Any day during the herring season carts may be seen on the denes carrying to and fro the fleets of nets that are spread out to dry on the grass; and if two heavily-laden carts in particular were noticed being drawn along the lower road towards the town, no one was any the wiser as to their contents, since the red-painted tins of petrol which they carried were successfully hidden under cover of herring nets. Mark Redisham and his fellow scouts knew too well the importance of their discovery to say anything about it, even in their homes.

One thing which the members of the Lion Patrol had especially laid to heart from the beginning of the war was the necessity of keeping silence when in the performance of their duties they chanced to come into possession of a naval or a military secret.

They had shown that they could be trusted with information which never came to the knowledge of the ordinary reader of newspapers or of local gossips such as Constable Challis and old Mr. Croucher. Amongst themselves they might indeed talk and compare notes; but only within limits. Mark Redisham, for example, knew many things which he never mentioned to Darby Catchpole, while Darby was similarly silent towards Mark.

"Strictly between ourselves, sir," said Constable Challis, meeting Mr. Croucher on the esplanade, "I believe young Mark Redisham knows exactly where Sir John Jellicoe's Grand Fleet is at this moment, and what our submarines are doin' across there under the very noses of the enemy's forts. He knows a lot, sir. But you can take it from me, you might as well try to get blood out of a stone as information out of him."

"It's the same with young Catchpole," nodded Mr. Croucher significantly. "Time after time I've asked that boy to tell me in confidence things which I'm certain he knows—things about our ships and their mysterious movements, things about our awful disasters at sea which are being systematically hidden from us; but it's useless, Challis—useless, and we are kept in the dark; always kept in the dark."

"Talking about bein' in the dark, sir," resumed the constable, "have you seen the trench as the Scouts have been makin' in Mrs. Daplin-Gennery's kitchen-garden? You ought to. It's a room that you could live in, with four feet of sand piled on the roof as a refuge from bombs and shells. It's so comfortable and safe, sir, that Mrs. Daplin-Gennery threatens to invite her friends to take afternoon tea with her in it. And there's what they calls a sap trench—a tunnel leadin' from it right up to the kitchen door, so that the household can escape into it on the first alarm, and be as safe as a rabbit in its burrow."

"Indeed?" said Mr. Croucher. "But mightn't it fall in, as mine did?"

"Not a bit of it, sir," declared Chain's. "You could mount a 6-inch gun on top of it. Those Sea Scouts knew what they was doin' when they planned and built it. It's not an ordinary dug-out, sir, like yours and the vicar's. First of all they quarried a deep pit and shifted the bicycle shed into it. They packed the shed round with sandbags, roofed it with cross planks, covered it with brushwood, and then piled a mound of sea sand on top. Even supposin' a Zeppelin bomb was to drop on it, there'd be no explosion. If a shell from an enemy ship was to smash the house, the people in the underground shed would be safe, bein' too far off for the chimneys and bricks and things to fall on them. Of course, it can never be really needed. The Germans'll never come here."

"Don't be too sure about that, Challis," Mr. Croucher retorted warmly. "Mrs. Daplin-Gennery and her household may have to go into their refuge any day, any night. As I have argued all along, if the enemy's battleships break through, we are doomed. We can't resist them, either on sea or land, let alone the air. We are in constant danger. Look at what they're doing on the Continent! They've already occupied Brussels, you know. Antwerp has fallen, too. They will take the Channel ports next—Ostend, Calais, and Boulogne—and then, Challis, it will be the invasion of England, and they will serve us just as they have served the poor Belgians—perhaps worse."

Constable Challis shook his head and smiled compassionately upon the timid, old gentleman.

"You may take it from me, sir," he averred, "the Germans will never get to Calais. The Allies won't let 'em. And try how they will, they'll always be brought up against the British Navy. Not but what Mrs. Daplin-Gennery is quite right to have that trench made. It comforts her and her servants to know that it's there."

"They may have need for it much sooner than you think, Constable," declared Mr. Croucher, turning in at Mrs. Daplin-Gennery's gateway.

In the garden he encountered Seth Newruck.

"Is Redisham in the trench?" he inquired. "I have come to have a look at it."

"There is nobody there now, sir," Seth answered. "Mark Redisham is out at sea with the mine-sweepers. I've just been making things a bit tidy. I'm sorry I haven't time to stay, sir; but I've got to go down to the naval base to see our Scoutmaster. Mrs. Daplin-Gennery has gone into the town in her motor-car; but I daresay if you ask the cook she will show you into the trench, or," he reflected that Mr. Croucher was lame, "you could get into it yourself easily enough if you're careful about how you go down the ladder."

Mr. Croucher looked somewhat disappointed. He had resolved to ask Mark Redisham to dig a similar refuge in his garden at Rose Cottage.

"Gone out mine-sweeping, has he?" he ruminated. "When will he be back?"

"I don't know, sir. Perhaps in a week; perhaps in a day or two."

"That reminds me," pursued Mr. Croucher, detaining Seth with a grip on the boy's shoulder. "Is it true that Redisham has invented a new contrivance for picking up German mines, and that the Admiralty have adopted it?"

"They're always making improvements of one sort or another," Seth answered evasively.

"Yes, I suppose so. But I understand that this invention of Redisham's is not only an improvement, but an entirely new idea, on the principle of a torpedo net, and that it's the means of saving dozens of valuable lives. I have noticed some of the mine-sweeping boats going out with curious gear at their prows. How is it worked?"

Seth Newruck was not quite sure whether or not he was expected to regard the matter as a naval secret.

"How is it worked, eh?" repeated Mr. Croucher. "I am sure you know."

"I'm afraid it would take too long to explain, sir," Seth answered guardedly. "You should go down to the harbour and get one of the naval officers to show you. But there's the cook at the kitchen door, sir. I must be off. Good-morning, sir."

Mr. Croucher's puffy eyes followed the boy as he ran off.

"Just the same as the rest of them," he complained. "There's no worming information out of any of them. One would think that they were all bound down by an oath of secrecy."

Seth Newruck had spoken quite truthfully when he said that he had no time to spare. He was glad to have such a valid excuse to escape from the inquisitive questioning of the old gossip. He was due to report himself for duty at the naval base at eleven o'clock, when Mr. Bilverstone would probably send him on some errand to the coastguards or to the police-station, or give him some piece of clerical work to perform. It was already half-past ten, and he had a long walk through the town.

As he went at scout's pace along the esplanade, he glanced eastward across the sea to a grey-painted gunboat which he quickly recognised as H.M.S. Rapid. She was steaming northward, followed by a flotilla of mine-sweepers. He wished that he might be on board of her, little dreaming that she was destined never again to return to her moorings in Haddisport harbour. He heard a whirring in the air and looked back for a moment to watch a seaplane flying overhead. Very soon the seaplane passed above him, and by something in its colour and structure he knew it to be the machine of which Lieutenant Aldiss was the pilot—Lieutenant Aldiss who had lately done such wonderful, daring things in the aerial raid over Düsseldorf. The aeroplane presently circled round and seemed to hover above some dark-sailed boats outside of Haddisport, as if the pilot were inspecting them with suspicion.

Seth Newruck looked at the boats curiously as he ran, but they were soon hidden from view beyond the trees of the park. He walked through the park and down the long High Street. At the top of each of the narrow scores leading downward to the beach, there was a group of people, eagerly looking out to sea. Beyond the Town Hall, Seth paused and mingled with a group at the top of Fisherman's Score.

"What are they looking at?" he questioned of a man in khaki. "Is it a wreck?"

"Nobody seems to know," the soldier answered. "It's something about those boats out there."

The boats were certainly curious enough to excite interest. Seth Newruck had never seen any exactly like them before, although he prided himself on his knowledge of sailing craft and the varieties of rig. The nearest resemblance to them that he knew were galliots in a Dutch picture at home. They were clumsy, untidy-looking vessels, with bluff bows and weather boards, tall masts, and patched, ill-fitting sails. He counted thirty at the least.

He thought for an instant of Mr. Croucher's often-repeated statement about the flat-bottomed boats in which the Germans were expected to bring over their invading troops. Could these be raiding Germans? he wondered. Then, as one of the sloops turned shoreward, he saw a flag at the peak of her mast. It was black, yellow, and red.

"They're Belgian!" he cried, and ran off down the town.

While he ran he recollected something which he had read in the newspaper that morning. Antwerp had fallen and was occupied by the Germans. The Belgian Army and British troops had retired. The Belgian people, driven from their homes, had fled to the coast, and now the enemy had reached Ostend.

A glimmer of the truth was revealed to him. These boats which he had seen making for Haddisport were surely Flemish fishing smacks bringing the hard-pressed, homeless Belgians across to the friendly refuge of England.

CHAPTER XVII.

TOLD THROUGH THE TELEPHONE.

Seth Newruck's belief was confirmed when he reached the harbour and met his Scoutmaster and Darby Catchpole.

"Give whatever help you can, Newruck," said Mr. Bilverstone. "These boats coming in are from Ostend, with Belgian refugees, who will want food. Many of them will be ill, some wounded. The boats will be brought up alongside the Kingfisher, first of all. Then the people will be taken to the public hall."

The jetties and quays were crowded with townsfolk, watching the trawlers drift slowly in to the outer harbour. As the first boat came alongside the quay there was an audible gasp of pity for the forlorn victims of war. The little craft was thronged with women and children, looking miserably ill and hungry, and still showing in their grim faces the lingering horror of all they had gone through, mingled with doubt as to the manner in which they would be received in a foreign land.

Then caps were raised in silent salute, handkerchiefs were waved in welcome, and the townsfolk pressed forward eagerly to throw down tins of biscuits, bags of buns, bananas, and chocolate, and to pass cans of hot coffee and milk.

Among the most eager was Mrs. Daplin-Gennery, who had loaded her motor-car with food from a neighbouring confectioner's and got Darby Catchpole to help her to distribute it as each boat was warped in. All the time, tears of sympathy and sorrow were running down her cheeks, and she spoke to the Belgians in French, which some of them understood. Once, when a particular boat was passing, crowded with women, all of whom seemed to be ill, she took off her rich coat and threw it down to one of them and then returned to her car to buy yet more food.

There were over fifty boats in all, bringing considerably more than a thousand of the poorest refugees from all parts of Belgium, with such little treasures as they had been able to snatch from their desolated homes. Many of them had brought their dogs, their cats, and their canaries. Many were wounded, and had to be taken to the hospitals. Some were taken to houses in the town, but most of them were driven in cars to the public hall, where they were well cared for.

Mr. Arnold Bilverstone, taking temporary leave from his duties at the naval base, had mustered all the Scouts in the town to give help in attending to the distressed refugees. He was busy in the public hall, making a list of the Belgians' names, when Seth Newruck went hurriedly up to him and plucked at his sleeve.

"Mr. Bilverstone, I've got something to tell you, sir," began Seth.

Mr. Bilverstone laid aside his fountain pen and prepared to listen.

"Yes," he smiled, "what is it? Some more families got accidentally mixed up? Children separated from their mothers and sent to the wrong billets?"

"No, sir, it's not that," Seth went on haltingly, as if fearing that after all his communication was of no importance. "It's something I've seen. I don't know if you noticed one of the Belgian boats, a small, yawl-rigged vessel, called La Belle Pucelle, of Blankenberghe? She was one of the last that came in, and about the most untidy of the lot. She was like a floating rag-bag."

"I didn't see her to my knowledge," returned Mr. Bilverstone, turning back a page of his list, "but I wrote her name within the last half-hour. Here it is, La Belle Pucelle, with the names of the thirty-nine refugees who crossed in her—twenty-two women, five children, four infants in arm's, three men, apart from a crew of four men and a boy, and two dogs of doubtful breed. That's the lot."

Seth Newruck was looking at the list over the Scoutmaster's shoulder.

"That is eight men, including the boy," he said. "But as a matter of fact, sir, there were nine, and you haven't got the ninth man's name, because he didn't get registered. He didn't come ashore in the same way as the rest of them. I watched him, sir. The reason why I took particular notice of him was that he looked of a different class from the others, and was about the only refugee of military age, apart from the fishermen who did the seamen's work."

"Well?" urged Mr. Bilverstone.

"He wore a very shabby overcoat," Seth continued, "but beneath it he had a good tweed suit. Just as the boat came alongside the quay he slipped behind the mainsail; and when he appeared again, he had taken off the overcoat, changed his cloth cap for a bowler, and was carrying a brown leather handbag. While the other refugees were pressing forward to receive the food that was handed down to them, he got round to the stern, stepped on the quarter rail, and from that on to the quay, where he quickly disappeared in the crowd."

"I expect he was an Englishman who had missed the passenger steamers and come over by the only way possible," suggested Mr. Bilverstone.

"No, sir," insisted Newruck, "he wasn't an Englishman, nor yet a Belgian. He wasn't even a genuine refugee. I'm rather good at remembering faces, sir, and I knew I'd seen his face before, somewhere; though it wasn't until he'd gone that I realised who he was. I'm certain, now, however, I know that he was an alien enemy, a German, and a spy. I know that he was Fritz Seligmann—Herr Hilliger's secretary."

Mr. Bilverstone looked up sharply.

"Indeed?" he cried. "You are sure?"

"Certain." Seth Newruck nodded emphatically. "I believe he has smuggled himself over here to do some spying work."

The Scoutmaster was silent for some moments. He took up his pen, but did not use it.

"Look here, Seth," he said presently. "There may be more in this than appears on the surface. That man has come over here for no good. He ought to be tracked. Unfortunately, I can't leave this work just now. But you can be spared, I think. Suppose you go up to Sunnydene. That's where he'll make for. Go up and have a look at the house. If you see anything to show that some one has entered—any smoke from the chimneys, if the gate has been left open, if there are any new footprints on the garden path—let me know at once. Mrs. Daplin-Gennery will let you use her telephone. I expect I shall be at the naval base until about midnight. If I don't hear from you before then, I shall understand that nothing has happened, or that you have made a mistake in supposing that the man was Hilliger's secretary."

Mrs. Daplin-Gennery had taken into her home a family of the Belgian refugees. They were people of good class, from Bruges; and after all the misery they had endured in their flight to Ostend, and the hardships of their crossing the North Sea in a crowded, open boat, she was unwilling to allow them to undergo the further discomfort of being, as she said, "herded" in the public hall. So she had brought them, a mother and two daughters, to Green Croft, providing them with new clothes, giving up to them two of her best bedrooms, and entertaining them with the most dainty dinner that her cook could serve.

During the meal they had told her so many thrilling and shocking stories of the German invasion and occupation of Belgium that she was worked up into a condition of extreme nervousness and began to dread more than ever the possibility of the enemy extending their march of ruthless conquest and destruction by coming over to England.

When her three guests had retired for the night, and she was left alone, her nervousness increased; she started at every little sound that broke the silence of the house, and when at length there came a violent ring at an electric bell, she clutched the arms of her chair, trembling.

The ring was repeated. Some one was at the front door. She tried to master her fears. Rising unsteadily from her chair, she crept silently out into the unlighted hall and stood listening.

Again came a ring. She strode across to the hall table, opened its drawer and took out the loaded revolver which she had kept there since the beginning of the war in case of emergency. Gripping the weapon tightly, she approached the door and drew the bolt.

"Who's there?" she demanded. "What do you want at this time of night?"

"It's Seth Newruck," came the answer. "I want to know if you will allow me to use your telephone, ma'am, to speak to the naval base?"

With all her courage coming back to her, Mrs. Daplin-Gennery flung open the door.

"Goodness gracious, boy!" she cried, hardly able to see him in the pitch darkness. "Whatever are you doing out alone at such an hour? Come inside, quick! Yes, of course you can use the telephone."

She led him into the morning-room, where she lighted a candle, bright lights being prohibited. There she left him with the telephone receiver at his ear.

He was not long in getting into communication with Mr. Bilverstone.

"I've been watching Sunnydene since dusk, sir," he reported. "One of the window blinds had been moved. I knew there was some one in the house. But nothing happened for hours, until, at last, just as I was thinking of going home to bed, I saw a man come out of the grounds by the side gate with a spade over his shoulder. He went down the cliff to the denes. I took cover and followed him. He was making straight for the place where we discovered the petrol, but stopped half way. There was a patrol of Territorials on the beach. He'd seen or heard them, and he had to turn back. As he passed the bush where I was hiding, I saw him more distinctly; but it's fearfully dark, and I could only judge by his figure and walk that he was Fritz Seligmann."

"That's all right, so far," Mr. Bilverstone interposed across the telephone. "Did he go back to the house?"

"Well, sir," Seth continued, "he went by a round-about way, and I lost sight of him for a long time and couldn't move for fear he should see me. While I waited, a very queer thing happened, sir. There were no ships anchored in the Roads, and of course there were none under weigh; and yet when I looked out to sea, I noticed a tiny, green light somewhere about the middle of Alderwick shoal. It disappeared as suddenly as it came. And then, sir, there was a curious grunting noise from the same spot. Are you listening, sir?"

"Yes. What sort of a noise do you say it was?"

"I said grunting, sir; but if it had come from deeper water I should have said that it was the sound made by a submarine emptying or filling her ballast tanks. Do you think it could have been?"

"Wait. Let me consider." There was a long pause. "It's just possible. You've to remember that secret store of petrol. There is no doubt that Heinrich Hilliger intended it to be used by a German submarine. In that case it's not wildly improbable that a German submarine is hanging round with the intention of lifting it, not knowing that it has already been removed. But they can't very well come ashore for it while the sentries are patrolling the beach. Neither can Seligmann do any digging, unless he's desperate enough to shoot the sentries first, and so get them out of the way. Now, if it was indeed a submarine that you heard—a German submarine—and if she is short of petrol, she will wait there, submerged. In that case we may be able to drop on her. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," returned Seth. "And I understand, or rather guess, something else. I guess that if she has come to fill her petrol tanks from Alderwick beach, she must have been piloted there by some one who knows every fathom of that shoal. Don't you think it's likely that Max Hilliger is aboard of her, sir?"

"Listen!" Mr. Bilverstone's voice responded. "I will send a couple of marines along to keep watch, while you cut home and dress yourself up as a fisher boy and come down to me here at the naval base."

"A fisher boy, sir?" Seth inquired in wonder.

"Yes," came the answer. "At the first gleam of daylight you are going out with me in a shrimping boat, to fish for shrimps round about Alderwick shoal. You understand? Right."

CHAPTER XVIII.

A SHRIMPING ADVENTURE.

"Not such a bad take for the first, eh?" said Arnold Bilverstone, emptying the pocket of the shrimping net into the basket between the thwarts. "If you're fond of shrimps, Seth, you can have a good feed at teatime."

Seth Newruck, astern at the tiller, bent forward to examine the catch of the dim light of the early dawn.

"I should like them very much better if they weren't so beastly difficult to peel, sir," he answered. "I nearly always break them."

"That is probably because you don't go the right way about it," rejoined Mr. Bilverstone, glancing shoreward. "You should press the head and tail firmly towards each other, giving them a gentle half turn. That loosens the scales, and you can draw the shrimp free as easily as drawing your finger out of a glove. Luff!"

Seth luffed, and the lugger came up to the wind and bowled forward with a musical gurgle of water along her strakes.

Mr. Bilverstone was in no hurry to add to the little pile of jumping, wriggling crustaceans in the basket. He was much less intent upon catching shrimps than watching the growing light in the eastern sky and calculating the boat's distance from Alderwick Knoll.

"When we get abreast of the lighthouse," he said, "we'll put out the gear again and creep along the shore. Don't stare about too much. We must pretend to be tremendously interested in our work. But keep your ears open. When we've passed Sunnydene we shall tack out as if we were making for the north end of the shoal. If a periscope pops up, we'll just go ahead as if we hadn't noticed it. A submarine couldn't torpedo a cockleshell like this, and unless she comes up awash we're just as safe from gunfire."

"What I don't understand," said Seth, "is that, supposing a German submarine to be lying submerged out there in the shoal water; supposing she has come to refill her petrol tanks, how could she get the petrol on board? She couldn't come alongside the beach; and submarines don't carry boats."

"The new German ones do," Mr. Bilverstone informed him. "They keep a collapsible boat stowed in a hatchway abaft the conning-tower. But, of course, it could only be launched when the submarine is awash. As for getting the petrol aboard, you may be sure they'd manage it somehow if it were still where they think it is."

"They can't find out that we've removed it, unless they come ashore to look," Seth reflected.

Mr. Bilverstone paid out the lugsail sheet an inch or two and perched himself on the windward gunwale.

"As a matter of fact," he said, "I believe they know already. I didn't tell you; but an hour ago, while you were having a sleep under my writing-table, we had a report from the two marines patrolling Alderwick beach. At about two o'clock they saw an electric light signal flashed from the foreshore, near one of the groins. There were no ships in sight, and no answering signal was seen. Still the light kept on flashing. The two marines crept up, one on either side of the groin. They got so near that one of them called out a challenge. As there was no response he fired. The light went out then. There was no cry, no sound, no movement. Nobody was shot; yet nobody ran away. The two marines and two Territorial sentries searched, but found absolutely no trace of the chap who had been signalling. He had vanished as completely as if the tide had come up and swallowed him."

"That's queer!" murmured Seth. "Very queer. There must have been somebody working the hand-lamp, sir."

"Not necessarily a hand-lamp," Mr. Bilverstone smiled. "None of the patrol thought of it, but it's easy to imagine how a tricky German, such as Fritz Seligmann, could plant an electric bulb in the sand or shingle, or even among the timbers of the groin, and work the switch from the top of the cliff by means of a long-distance connection. A spy was caught three nights ago signalling from the air. He flew a kite with an electric current running through the string. Spies wouldn't be much good if they weren't tricky."

Slowly the dawning light in the eastern sky grew brighter, changing from steel grey to gold, tinged with a rosy glow. Again and again Mr. Bilverstone put out the gear. No one seeing the two occupants of the little boat, with its brown lugsail, would have believed them to be anything else than ordinary shrimpers. They both wore tanned canvas overalls and oilskin sou'-westers, and their manner of working contributed to their disguise.

Twice they passed along the leeward fringe of the shoal. Seth Newruck's eyes searched the ruffled water where the waves broke here and there above the shallows; but he saw nothing unusual.

"I'm afraid we shall have only the shrimps for our trouble, sir," he remarked with a shiver, for the morning was very cold.

"Don't be impatient," nodded his companion, opening a Thermos flask. "We haven't finished our job yet. Here, have a drink of warm tea; and there are some biscuits in the locker behind you. Come forward here, and I will take the tiller for a spell."

He took the boat outward, as if he were making for the lightship, leaving the shoal in his wake.

"Don't look round, sir," Seth whispered agitatedly. "I can see two periscopes, close together. And there's a sort of commotion in the water round about them, as if the submarine were rising."

Mr. Bilverstone put over the tiller, so that the boat yawed and her sail began to flutter. He left the tiller and crept forward over the thwarts, seized the halliard, and lowered the sail, then hauled it up again, returned to the tiller and brought her up to the wind, going on as before.

"What did you do that for, sir?" Seth inquired, amazed at what he took to be an example of bad seamanship. "She was going on all right."

Mr. Bilverstone took a drink of tea.

"It was a signal," he explained. "All the time while we've been out they've been watching us from the naval base. The Kingfisher has had her steam up ready to come out as soon as we should give the sign. We have given it. You will see her presently. What about the periscopes?"

"They're still there, sir," Seth answered. "I can see the top of her conning-tower above water. She's moving. I believe I can hear her engines grunting. So she's got some petrol left. Hullo! I can see a man's head and shoulders."

"She's bound to come up and work her petrol engines to generate electricity," said Mr. Bilverstone, going on a fresh tack. "Haul in the net, quick! Those Germans will guess we had a hand in it when they see the gunboat coming after them."

Seth got the gear inboard, and again his companion tacked. The boat was making for home, with both wind and tide in her favour.

Mr. Bilverstone could now watch the submarine. She was awash, and her petrol engines, making a great clatter, were evidently working up to full speed. Two of her crew had come out on the platform of her conning-tower. One was in officer's uniform. The sun, piercing the mist, shone upon his brass buttons and the gold badge on his cap. He stood looking southward to where two plumes of smoke from a steamer's funnels rose into the morning air over the lighthouse point. It could be seen that he had his left arm in a sling.

"She's coming after us, sir!" cried Seth. "She'll sink us!"

"She's trying to escape from the gunboat," declared Mr. Bilverstone. "You see, she can't submerge until her electric batteries are charged, and she can go quicker on the surface. Look! There comes the Kingfisher!"

The officer disappeared for some moments, but returned with a pair of binoculars, which he levelled upon the gunboat. The submarine quickly increased her speed, sending up a great fountain of foam as she cut through the water. She passed so close to the shrimp boat that it rocked on the waves she left in her wake. Seth Newruck saw the number on her side—U50. He also caught a glimpse of the face of the young officer on the deck of her conning-tower.

"Look!" he cried excitedly. "Look, sir! It's Max Hilliger himself!"

Hardly had he spoken when there was a spurt of fire and smoke from one of the Kingfisher's 4.7 guns; a shell whistled through the air and sent up a tall column of spray as it fell midway between the submarine and the shrimping boat. The submarine, now fully on the surface and racing along at eighteen-knot speed, offered a good target; but she manoeuvred, steering a zig-zag course, seldom exposing her broadside. A gun was raised from its concealed hatchway on her after platform, and she replied to the Kingfisher's fire without visible effect.