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newspaper story of the year, an absolute scoop, and I just don't dare use it. You don't know what that means to me; but take my word for it. No, there's no use my going; there's nothing I can do; and besides, "-here he smiled grimly,-"having committed our crime, it 's rather up to me to go back and destroy the evidence. If I stayed, I'd only make trouble. When you got those Huns on board, I'd kill some of the damned beasts with my bare hands!"

With more light, Everett must have seen that the man before him was fighting hard to retain his self-control. The voice gave but little evidence of the struggle which raged within.

"No! no! I want no thanks," he stumbled on. "You-you finish the job; that 's all I ask. No! no! I did n't do it for you, I did n't do it for you or for England; I did it for myself-for myself-for my own reasons-Oh, my God! for my own-damned-good-reasons!" And turning suddenly, he reeled into the Judith's cabin, leaving the Englishman staring.

In five minutes the tug had cast off and was steaming back toward the land.

KOENIG'S plan was to cross the routes of the transatlantic steamers as quickly as possible, and then get well away from them. Once free from the risk of frequent meetings, he figured he could turn eastward and run on the surface virtually day and night, and thus, making haste to suit himself, win across the ocean with convenience and safety. On the other hand, should he, in his passage across the rarely traversed portions of the sea, encounter ships not free from suspicion or ships which came too close, he was possessed of most adequate means for handling the situation: he need only take in his camouflage deck-house and smoke-stack, close his hatches, and disappear utterly from the knowledge of the world. But Koenig had little fear of these casual ship the experience of three other voy had shown that surface vessels no heed, or, detecting his sub character and not knowing able intentions, avoided hi plague.

"Oho!" he had boasted, "they are not afraid of us, oh, no! I have only to show myself, and they run like frightened curs!"

Of course there was a limit to the Deutschland's act of disappearance. She could go down, it is true, but, like any other submarine, the mileage traveled under water without recharging batteries was strictly limited, and the re-charging process required many hours, and could be done only upon the surface. The chief factor controlling the under-water mileage is the speed at which the submarine is driven. At the very maximum of, say, ten knots, the batteries will be dead in less than an hour; normal speed of six or seven knots can be held for perhaps eight hours; while a loaf-along three knots will permit of at least a full day's operation. Ten miles, fifty miles, eighty miles, are roughly the greatest ranges at these respective speeds, and the figures are significant. They mean that the faster she goes, the less the distance which a submarine can cover.

Provided the water is not too deep, submarines can descend and lie "doggo" upon the bottom, thus conserving the energy in the batteries; but in depths too great to permit of this, they must keep running at sufficient speed to render their horizontal rudders effective, otherwise they lose control of themselves. Hence, in deep water, with batteries almost dead, the submarine must choose between two things: she can come to the surface or she can go down down, down, until the terrific pressu crushes her ike an empty eggThere is r cher course.

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"I could wish it clearer," he mumbled to one of his officers, adding philosophically, "but what hides mine enemy hides me. Besides, the enemy has eyes of swine; he sees but poorly. Nicht wahr, Herr Steuermann?"

And having thus reassured himself, he started the Deutschland's engines. Soon she was tearing over the surface at her maximum speed, still heading southeast, and soaking juice into the storage batteries. The captain trusted partly to luck, partly to the stupidity of the British, but mostly to the sagacity of Paul Koenig, and he lost no opportunity of bringing his batteries up to full capacity.

The

Double lookouts, forward and aft, were placed, and twice during the early morning hours there came alarms. first occurred a little after three o'clock, when, through a moment's lifting of the mist, one of the lookouts thought he saw a vague outline well behind the submarine's stern. The officer of the watch was called, and several others, but though they strained their eyes, they could detect nothing. That Kurt, under the obvious stress and responsibility, was imagining things, was the conclusion.

An hour later Kurt again gave the alarm, and so sure was he that Koenig, snatching a moment's rest below, came up on deck.

Not a thing was visible, and Kurt was laughed at. More delusions!

"I tell you, with my own eyes I saw!" he expostulated, in a frenzy of exasperation. "A ship; a big ship, right back there!" pointing excitedly. "I do not see her now, no; but before God I have seen her twice this night with my own eyes! Herr Kapitän,"-turning in desperation to Koenig,-"have I sailed the seas all these years that I should at this time have visions?" And Koenig, who had known him in Atlantic passenger service as a man of extraordinarily keen sight, had enough confidence to shut down the Deutschland's engines, submerge all but the conning-tower, and lie there listening for thirty minutes.

But no sound reached them, nor did any ship materialize out of the hazy blackness.

Dawn told another story. Koenig on re-starting had kept his course, so that the lookouts on the Amphion caught the outline of the sub against a lightening horizon many minutes before those on Koenig's vessel again detected the cruiser. Once more it was Kurt who gave the warning, and this time nothing could hold him.

"There! there! Don't you see! She is following us! Ach, Gott! it is a warship! I can see

Those who still stantly convinced.

doubted were inOut of the nothingness into which the sharp-eyed Kurt was pointing came a burst of flame, and the shell, striking the water a nicely calculated twenty feet to one side of the sub, drenched them to the skin. Whatever her previous best record for submerging, the Deutschland on that occasion bettered it materially, and not one of those on deck but sustained some injury in the mad scramble to get below. Koenig, his hand covered with blood, his clothing torn, his legs quivering, stood beneath the conning-tower vilifying his enemies.

"Englisches Schwein!" he snarled. "Englisches Schwein! Gott strafe England!" And lacking all sense of humor, he set about finding fault with the marksmanship. "Incompetent fools! A German artillery student of but one year would have found me with the first shot! Verdammte Schweine!"

The great problem before him was to lose the war-ship, whatever she was, and wherever she had come from. Koenig did not think she had been following him, not for any length of time, anyway. He half doubted Kurt's phantom ship of the earlier hours, or if the man had really seen something, it must have been some other vessel crossing the Deutschland's course at an angle. That there was nothing at that time following the submarine was proved conclusively by the half-hour stop, since a ship on the same course must have caught up with him in such a period. Probably it was just a case of bull-headed English luck, and one of their cruisers had had the undeserved good fortune to be close to the Deutschland when a breaking day revealed her position. Since this explanation seemed

logical and carried a modicum of comfort, Koenig very naturally concluded it to be correct, and set about solving his difficulty.

This particular "cur" differed from the others met on previous voyages in mid-ocean. She was not of the runing breed, evidently, though probably not one whit less stupid. Hence Koenig figured that if an Englishman were in command of the Deutschland, a decided alteration of the course would be made, and therefore the fool on the cruiser would probably conclude that Koenig would likewise make such an alteration. Consequently Koenig did nothing of the sort, but held the Deutschland to the original course on which she had been running on the surface. For three solid hours he drove her at the hundred-foot level, using every ounce of power he dared. Batteries so forced throw off large volumes of very irritating gas, so that by the end of this time the men were literally gasping, and it became highly desirable to get to the surface. With almost twenty-five miles placed between the sub and the point at which the cruiser had been encountered, Koenig felt it wise to have a look around. The war-ship would doubtless be completely out of sight, though if she were still visible, a course could be set to place an effective distance between them.

So the Deutschland was run cautiously upward until fairly close to the surface; the motors were stopped, and, when the vessel was almost without motion, a very little water was forced out from the ballast-tanks. Inch by inch she rose, the movement being almost imperceptible. Koenig could take no chance; a periscope traveling through the water even at a few knots throws up a feather of spray visible at a considerable distance, whereas the tube rising without horizontal motion is very difficult to detect.

But fate was not siding with the Hun that day. No sooner was the periscope clear of the water than Koenig at its lower end detected some sort of war-vessel. His face reddened in impotent anger, and then blanched as he saw a burst of white smoke from one of her guns. The Deutschland

quivered from stem to stern as the shell burst close alongside.

"Down! down!" he shrieked. "Down if you would live! Gott! Is it that the sea is full mit diesen verdammten Kreuzern?"

Diving-rudders were thrown to their greatest angle, and the motors, spitting and smoking at their brushes, drove the Deutschland down into the safety of the deep water.

It was nine o'clock when Koenig made his forced descent, and already he had had three hours running under conditions not good for either the batteries or the crew. Now he headed the Deutschland south, and, driving her hard, kept to this course for two hours. It is probable that a species of sheer fright then overcame what remained of his judgment, for he turned almost completely around and ran madly for the American coast, in whose neutral waters he evidently hoped for sanctuary. The least consideration of the facts would have shown him the futility of this move. German-like, he had expected his superior strategy would throw off the cruiser at the very first attempt, and so there had followed the prodigal and devastating three-hour drain upon the batteries. To this he had added two hours more, though at a lesser rate, and now, at this moment, the total energy remaining could not, in any circumstances or at any speed, carry him half the distance to the coast. He was totally unaware of the true state of affairs on the surface, though he had the demoralizing conviction that some condition existed which boded ill for the vessel in his keeping.

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"Let him run his own course until so far out to sea that he can't possibly double back on you," had counseled Wilson. "Keep from scaring him as long as you can; but once he sees you, let loose! Pester him! Plague him! Don't miss a chance! Shoot every time he shows his head, quick and hard! Hit him or not, as you want, that's your business; but give him no moment's peace. That sort of thing drives a Deutscher clean off his head; he'll do wild and crazy things. Keep him crazy, and he 'll run his

batteries out quick. But don't you forget for a minute that you 're dealing with a clever man, and if you give him half a chance to do any real thinking, there's no telling what may happen.'

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And in strict accordance Everett played his hand. Koenig's batteries showed marked signs of weakness by noon. At four o'clock he attempted to emerge, he had been down ten hours, and clearly divining the move, the Amphion ran up to within a furlong of the spot. The periscope was barely above water when machine-guns and the lighter batteries opened upon it in a vicious roar, and the entire top of the instrument was shot away. Koenig dived. He had a second periscope, it is true, but he dared not risk it at that moment. He knew what had hit him, though the blow had come SO quickly that he had not even seen the cruiser.

All night long he ran submerged, his speed dropping lower and lower as the batteries approached exhaustion. All night long the Amphion followed, relentless, inexorable, running close up now, so as to take no slightest chance.

Down in a perfect hell, strangling, gasping, suffocating, half of Koenig's crew lay unconscious, while the rest, their hands clutching their throats, and their eyes bulging, fought against the terrible choking death which already stretched forth a clawlike hand.

In the last few hours of darkness they once more approached the surface, but the periscope was scarcely up before its delicate lenses and prisms were shattered into a thousand pieces, leaving the sub utterly blind. She submerged again, but this time so slowly that the movement told its own vivid story. The hunt was almost over.

DAY came at last. A bitter, penetrating wind whipped the drizzling rain into the faces of the watchers. It was Everett who first saw the Deutschland's periscopes, one broken stump and then the other. Then came the conning-tower hatch, and then slowly, very slowly, the conning-tower itself. Inch inch she rose, until the whole of her deck was above water. The action was so deliberate and so unmis

takably significant that the Amphion witheld all fire. She merely pulled over a little closer and waited. Slowly the hatch was opened, and there emerged, evidently at great phy ical effort, the figure of Kurt, he of the clear vision. Above his head he held a soiled white handkerchief.

Koenig, a broken and crushed man, was assisted aboard the cruiser with the utmost difficulty. As he came over the rail, a seaman supporting him on each side, he saw and stared at the apparatus in the war-ship's bow.

"Our deep-sea fishing outfit," smilingly explained Everett. "The reel is a little large, of course, but then it has to hold such a long, strong line." Koenig, uncomprehending, glared in silence.

"Our fish is still on the hook, so to speak. If you could follow the 'line' over our bow and down through the water, you'd find the far end firmly attached to the Deutschland's keel.”

"Ach, Gott! that is fool's talk! Not one minute before sailing I passed a hand-line under her."

"Yes, I know; but one minute was all we needed."

Gradually the light broke in upon the slow-moving German mind. He turned upon Everett like a savage dog. "Gott!" he cursed-"Gott strafe England!" Then as in quick succession he recalled the bothersome newspaper man, the alleged press tug, the electric sign, the telegram, the blowing of the siren, and the following out to sea, and as the significance of the whole thing dawned upon him, he raised his two clenched fists to heaven.

"Amerika! Amerika!" he cried. "Gott -strafe-Amerika!"

Back in Providence, Rhode Island, in the bleak, desolate office of the Providence "Ledger," a nondescript man in nondescript clothes sat silently contemplating a half-sheet of note-paper. It was a wireless message, in from the seven seas and caught by a suitcase outfit which boasted no Federal license. From time to time the man smiled, just a little ghost of a smile, such as might be warranted when, looking back upon an arduous labor, one knows his effort has not been in vain.

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