Keeping steadily just under the surface, we proceeded swiftly past ports and villages and lonely wharves, till the stars paled and disappeared and a faint flush overspreading the sky in front warned us that day was breaking behind us.
I searched the banks for anything resembling the craft of which I was in search, but in vain. We passed many other ships, chiefly merchantmen bound for Lubeck and Dantzig and other Baltic ports, but of course without being perceived ourselves.
When we reached the mouth of the Canal, I ordered Orloff to stop.
“I must go ashore here, and inquire about the other boat,” I explained.
I saw from the expression of his face that this step was not quite to his liking, but he did not venture on any remonstrance.
He brought the boat alongside the bank, and raised her gently to the surface, to enable me to step on shore.
But my quest proved useless, as perhaps I ought to have foreseen.
The harbor-master, or port captain, to whom I addressed myself, affected the most entire ignorance of the exit of any submarine within the last week or more.
“What you suggest is impossible,” he assured me. “Every submarine is well known and carefully guarded, and if one had been permitted to leave Kiel by way of the Canal, I should have been notified in advance. No such notification has reached me, and therefore, as you will see, no such boat can possibly have left.”