"How goes it, old thing?" inquired Cavendish.
"Not so dusty," admitted Sub-lieutenant Slade. "We're hoping to finish the job before dark. We've a couple of hours yet.... You've been having a bit of a jamboree, eh what? See anything of the submarine?"
"I did," replied Cavendish grimly. "Both ends with nothing between 'em."
"Are you trying to pull my leg, Weeds?" inquired Slade earnestly.
"No—fact," was the reply. "We did her in with an ash-can—a couple, in point of fact. Couldn't let you know before. Dynamos were flooded and emergency wireless was out of action."
"You must tell our owner that," continued Slade. "He's on the bridge."
Lieutenant-Commander Trehallow received the information with marked enthusiasm and not a little relief. Hitherto, he was hampered by the knowledge that there was a mysterious submarine acting as consort to the pirate surface-craft. The submarine accounted for, left him and his "opposite number" on the Armentières with relatively free hands. They could concentrate all their energies upon the pursuit of the soi-disant Holton Heath without the chance of becoming targets to an invisible foe—unless there were other submarines out.
"It puzzles me," remarked Trehallow to Cavendish as they stood under the lee of the chart-room, the only possible spot on the otherwise exposed bridge where they could converse without having to shout in a howling wind, "it puzzles me to know where these blighters hail from. You can't hide even a disguised cruiser and a submarine in your coat pocket. They must have a base somewhere—but where? There's no port on this part of the coast that isn't under the control and jurisdiction of one or other of the South American republics. It's fishy—very. There's something pretty big behind this. Only the other day——"
The appearance of the yeoman of signals, with a signed pad in his hand, interrupted the Lieutenant-Commander's words.
"By smoke!" he ejaculated. "Here, Carfax!"