“Up anchor, quick!” shouted Lieutenant Selby, springing into the conning tower. The shrill whistle of the bos’un’s pipe sounded at the same moment and in a second the ship that had been so still and inert was a maelstrom of activity. The anchor was broken out and long before it was landed home at the catheads the Tarantula, a long line of white foam streaking aft from each side of her sharp bow, was steering through the water in pursuit of the flying submarine.
Lieutenant Selby’s first action after they were under way had been to order the searchlight played on the chase and kept on her. Fortunately the phosphorescent glow left on the water by the submarine, as she dashed away, made her course as plain as day and the man operating the searchlight had no difficulty in finding her.
As the light played about her the watchers on the Tarantula, made out two forms standing on her railed-in back.
“Bellman!” exclaimed Frank as his eyes fell on the taller of the two.
“Foyashi, the scoundrel,” was Lieutenant Chapin’s recognition of the shorter one.
“We’ll get ’em if we blow the Tarantula up,” exclaimed Lieutenant Selby tensely, as he shouted down to the engineer, “more steam, Mac.”
The pace was terrific, moreover it was dangerous navigation, but everyone aboard well knew that they would have to catch the submarine before she got out of the waters where she did not dare to dive, and there was not a man aboard that was not willing, in the heat of the chase, to take the chance of running aground.
Lieutenant Selby himself had taken the wheel from the man who had held it when the chase began and like greyhound and hare the destroyer and the submarine raced along.
“Try them with the bow gun,” suggested Lieutenant Chapin to his associate.
“A good idea, old man,” was the reply, and old Bob Adams, a seamy-faced veteran, was called aft and promised unlimited tobacco and spending money if he could hit the submarine and “wing” her. Old Adams was a man of few words and didn’t change his usual habit of silence, as the gun was made ready for him. It was a Hotchkiss rapid-fire capable of piercing steel-armor at half-a-mile and the submarine’s broad glistening back offered a good mark.