"The senior officer, then?"
There was a movement on deck. Some of the men bawled down the hatchway. After some delay a fat, fair-haired sub-lieutenant appeared. Being unable to speak or understand English the new arrival made use of the petty officer as an interpreter.
"Do I understand that you surrender?" demanded Terence.
"Yes; if our lives are spared," answered the German officer through the medium of the interpreter.
"Very good; I accept your surrender on conditions," agreed Terence, speaking deliberately, and with a stern, menacing tone in his voice. "Your craft must be given up exactly in its present condition. If any attempt be made to open the valves no quarter will be given."
It went against his sense of honour to speak in this strain. He knew perfectly well that, happen what may, quarter would not be denied these modern pirates. But experience taught him that on more than one occasion a German submarine had surrendered to a British vessel, and as soon as the crew was safe, the ballast tanks would be deliberately flooded to let the boat sink for good and all, so that the secret of their construction should not be revealed to the hated English.
Consequently he was not surprised when the German officer, on hearing the conditions, made a gesture of defiance and disappeared below. Before many seconds had passed the crippled submarine began to sink deeper and deeper in the water. The survivors of her crew, now animated by the example of their young officer, lined up, bare-headed, and joining hands burst into the words of "Deutschland uber alles." One brawny, yellow-haired man produced a German ensign lashed to a boat-hook stave, and held it defiantly aloft. It was perhaps fortunate that they did not attempt to use the still intact quick-firer, otherwise Terence might have been compelled to put his empty threat into execution.
The end was not long in coming. The slight reserve of buoyancy of the submarine was quickly destroyed by the inrush of water, both through the valves and through the huge rent in the base of the conning-tower.
The water mounted to the knees of the double line of men. Still singing they looked death in the face. Then with a sudden lurch that threw the ranks into complete disorder, the submarine plunged. "Deutschland uber alles" trailed away into a grim silence, broken by the rush of water and the hiss of escaping air.
The next instant the submarine was lost to sight, taking with her the resolute sub-lieutenant, whose devotion to the Kaiser had out-weighed his conscience in the matter of the utter disregard of international law.