"She would have sent us to the bottom without the faintest compunction if she had had the ghost of a chance, sir," replied Dick. "I don't think we need have anything upon our consciences."
"Well, we'll have to be moving," remarked Huxtable, who was taking a leisurely survey of his surroundings.
The cruiser had now sunk. Only the tops of her funnels and her masts were visible. She had been lying at anchor in a fairly broad and widening channel, the shores of which on both sides were dotted with picturesque kiosks, half hidden in clusters of cypress and olive trees. Beyond the visible relics of the torpedoed ship and the still distant Turkish patrol-craft, there was nothing to denote the presence of war conditions.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Huxtable. "We're miles up the Golden Horn. Those are the houses of Pera we can see in the distance. That paddle-steamer must have piloted us through the bridge of boats between the capital and Galata. Crosthwaite, my boy, we've beaten all records—and we've got to get back."
He gave the order to dive. Before the periscope had time to disappear a column of spray dashed up within twenty yards, as a shell from the nearest destroyer ricochetted and plunged with disastrous results into an elegant summer resort on the bank of the Golden Horn.
Gently feeling her way, lest any large disturbance of the water should betray her position, the submarine made for the Bosphorus; but before she had covered a quarter of a mile she grounded on a bed of slimy mud.
Promptly the Lieutenant-Commander ordered the motors to be switched off. Any attempt to forge ahead would only succeed in churning up vast quantities of mud by the propellers. All that could be done for the time being was to lie low.
The thud of machinery announced to the crew that the Ottoman destroyers were cruising over their hiding-place, while muffled detonations at frequent intervals told them that the Turks were making use of explosive grapnels in the hope of locating and shattering the hull of the British submarine.
"That's a close one!" muttered Dick, as a sharp detonation resulted in nothing worse than making the submarine roll sluggishly on the mud. It was too close to be pleasant, for, although the water was thick with sediment and effectually precluded daylight from filtering through the observation scuttles, the explosion threw a short blinding flash into the interior of the conning-tower.
It was a time of acute peril and mental strain. At any moment one of the submerged charges of gun-cotton might be exploded actually in contact with the steel hull, the crew of which were helpless to raise even a finger in self-defence. But the expected did not happen. Apparently satisfied with the result of their operations, the Turkish destroyers and patrol-boats steamed off, and quietude reigned once more on and under the waters of the Golden Horn.