The German stared at it, his eyes growing round with amazement.
"The Kaiser's flag has flown on this yacht at the Kiel Regatta many a time," said Hudson. "His Majesty used to come and lunch with me. I don't advise you to shoot me. He might remember some of my cigars. He gave me that flag himself. Of course I shan't use it again—not till it's been sprinkled with holy water. But I thought you might like a brief exhibition of shirt-sleeve navalism, as I suppose you'd call it.
"Most Europeans like us to live up to their ideas of us. The British do. Ever hear of Senator Martin? Whenever he's in London and goes to see his friends in the House of Commons, he wears a sombrero and a red cowboy shirt. He says they expect it and like it. He wouldn't care to do it in New York. As a fact, you know, we invented the electric telegraph and the submarine, and a lot of little things that you fellows have been stealing from us. Do you hear that?"
There were two sharp clicks in the bows, followed by a faint sound like the whirring of an electric fan under water; and Hudson pulled open the door that led into the fore part of the ship.
"Gott! Gott!" cried the German, and his men echoed it inarticulately; for there, in the semidarkness of the bows of the Morning Glory, they saw the dim shapes of seamen crouching beside two gleaming torpedo tubes. The torpedoes had just been discharged.
"You're too late to save your ship," said Matthew Hudson. "If you want to save your own skins you'd better keep still and listen for a moment."
Then came a concussion that rocked the Morning Glory like a child's cradle and sent her German visitors lurching and sprawling round the brass bedstead. When they recovered they found a dozen revolvers gleaming in front of their noses.
"Before we say anything more about this," said Hudson, "let's go on deck and look.
"Do you mind giving me that little shoe at your feet there?"
The officer turned a shade whiter than the shoe.