"A Fritz, sir," he declared. "Busting up to see what he can pinch. Never saw a Hun hurrying to his own funeral so smart before—unless this infernal roll gives the show away."
"Lie close, men," ordered the sub, addressing those of the felucca's complement who were not playing the rôle of Greeks. "All clear there, Sampson?"
"All clear, sir," replied the gunlayer confidently, as he gave a preliminary tug to the lever operating the raising mechanism of the disappearing gun.
"Hoist the colours, Dixon," continued the sub.
A barefooted bluejacket wearing a pair of fierce-looking turned-up moustachios, glittering "gold" earrings, a loosely-fitting red shirt, and a pair of trousers of grotesque cut, pattered aft with the Greek colours in one hand and a neatly rolled up ensign in the other. Bending the blue and white flag to the signal halliards of the main lateen yard-arm he hoisted the colours of the Mercantile Marine of the Kingdom of Greece. The rolled ensign he toggled to the ensign-staff halliards, keeping the compact bundle of bunting well below the taffrail.
The U-boat came up rapidly and unhesitatingly. Evidently the anticipated prize was not thought worth a warning shot, although the pirates were manning the for'ard "disappearing" gun. The whole of her length—close on 250 feet—was exposed, nearly a score of her crew being distributed along the deck. On the conning-tower platform stood a couple of gold-laced officers and the helmsman, for when running on the surface and not about to attack this type of craft is steered by means of a wheel in front of the conning tower.
From a stumpy mast in the wake of the twin periscopes the Black Cross ensign of Germany drooped sullenly in the still air, as if ashamed to display the badge of infamy.
At a distance of about two cables' lengths, the U-boat made a complete circuit of the felucca, as if to show her powers of manoeuvring. It was like a cat playing with a mouse.
"'Georgeos Nikolaos' ahoy!" shouted the kapitan-leutnant in a vile smattering of the language of the modern Hellenes. "Where are you bound? What is your cargo?"
One of the disguised bluejackets replied. An R.N.R. man he had, prior to the outbreak of hostilities, been a steward on a passenger boat plying between Port Said, the Piraeus, and Constantinople, and was decidedly a very handy member of the felucca's crew.