The Persia was apparently torpedoed, without warning. Like the Hesperian, she was armed with a 4.7 gun. One of the ship’s officers saw the white wake of the torpedo. But no one saw the submarine.

The commander of that submarine evidently believed, like Captain Sirius, in striking first and letting the lawyers talk about it afterwards.


INDEX

FOOTNOTES

[1] Also spelled Van Drebbel, Drebell, Dreble, and Trebel. He is the man Ben Jonson calls “Cornelius’ son.”

[2] Harsdoffer.

[3] “New Experiments touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects,” by Robert Boyle, Oxford, 1662, p. 188.