"Do you think," asked the captain, raising a troubled face, "that there are any submarine craft around?"
"How do I know?" answered Felton.
"I don't feel easy, at all," said the other, plaintively.
"How the devil," exclaimed Felton, "can a submarine hurt you?"
The captain looked down without answering, and Felton seated himself to cool off, wondering, the while, what particular brand of human nature was embodied in this crew, and half expecting a concerted attempt to bind him again. But nothing of the kind happened; and when his breathing and circulation were normal, he, too, looked down on the spectacle below.
The airship had descended to less than a hundred yards from the sea, and hung poised, not over the floating scrap heap that had once been a battleship, but to starboard. One look was enough for Felton; he saw men writhing among the wreckage, unable to crawl to the rail and end their agony. Smoke was coming from every aperture, and here and there a small tongue of flame shot up, and fell back into the smoke. Nauseated with horror, he closed his eyes, changed his position, and opened them on the placid sea on the other side—away from the Argyll. A smooth, rolling swell pulsed and ebbed along the surface, and it was slightly roughened with ripples; but this did not materially lessen the transparency of the ocean, viewed from a height. Fish were visible, swimming about in the depths, and Felton thought of sharks, waiting for the final plunge of that hot and smoking wreck. Far over, a movement on the surface caught his eye; it was a triangular arrangement of ripples such as is made by the cutwater of a boat moving slowly. The apex of the triangle pointed toward the Argyll, and it was coming toward her. As it drew near Felton made out the cause, a short length of pole extending about three feet out of water and moved by some power beneath. Then a huge, bulky shape, pointed like a fish, but foreshortened and distorted by reflection—a darker blue on the blue of the sea—appeared to view as the source of the motive power.
"There's a submarine, for you, captain," he called grimly. "See the periscope tube?"
"Where?" yelled the captain, excitedly. "Where is it?"
He sprang to his feet, and looked to where Felton pointed. The others followed suit, their cries, queries and alarmed faces increasing Felton's doubts as to their sanity.
"Oh, God help us!" cried the captain, mournfully, as he saw the tube and the shape beneath. "Jump—jump for your lives! Jump, you!"