Strangely it was answered. The pacifist Julian turned and flung himself upon the man at his side. He seemed to grapple insanely with the Leyden captain, till something in his keeping was torn out of his hand. Over their heads a shot rang out. Two sailors, about to board the lifeboat, hesitated, turned and vanished.
Newcomb was for the moment so sure it was the U-boat commander who had fired that his next impression was of a thing purely fantastic; for the figure up there against the stars, that figure inclined in a mockery of courtesy to Nan Ellis, jumped to attention; held the attitude rigidly an instant, and then, as though in pride of pose he had overreached himself, fell back. Men sprang to catch him and darkness closed round the dropped torch.
Out of the half-crazed confusion that followed, it was hard afterward to recall anything with both certainty and distinctness except the captain's rough order to Julian, "Here, give it back!" and a pistol changed hands. Newcomb had his share in wrenching the boat-hooks from their hold and in the feverish self-defeating activity of the oarsmen.
Out of the semi-darkness on the submarine torches spouted light. Out of the turmoil on conning-tower and deck, cries of fury crystallized to a single sentence repeated in German by a dozen tongues, "Axes! Axes! Stave her in!"
The first lieutenant gesticulated madly.
"Stop rowing instantly, or I fire!"
"Row! Row hard! For God's sake," Grant's voice prayed, "give me an oar!"
No one heeded; the rowers rowed for their lives. Two revolver-shots rang out, and the chief engineer rowed no more.
Instead of pursuing, the submarine had darted away. She was swinging half round a circle; she was, God in heaven! what now? She was heading this way again, coming at full speed.
Newcomb brought his eyes back to the faces nearest him. They showed him only that his own sick sense of helplessness was shared, and shared the remembrance of that threat, but for the girl. To ram the lifeboat? As easy as for a child to stick the end of a spoon through the breakfast egg.