"She doesn't like to open fire," declared the sub. "She's puzzled. Thinks we might be one of her patrol boats. We are, as far as the craft's concerned. Ah, I thought so: a warning shot."
A spurt of flame leapt from the destroyer's fo'c'sle, and, almost as soon as the sharp report, a 12-centimetre shell struck the water a cable's length away from the patrol boat's starboard quarter.
"A miss is as good as a mile," observed Sylvester. Nevertheless he ducked beneath the coaming, as if the thin teak plank was a sufficient protection from a powerful shell.
"It was intended as a miss," rejoined Farrar. "She'll get nearer than that, I fancy. Moke, old man, it's 'No Surrender.'"
"No Surrender," repeated Sylvester firmly. He had had quite enough of prison life in an enemy country to wish not to repeat the experience. Then, "How about those chaps?" he inquired, indicating the fore-peak, from which frantic shouts punctuated by loud beats upon the hatchway floated aft.
The sub pondered for a moment only.
"I'll give them the option of jumping overboard or hanging on here," he decided. "There are lifebelts... the destroyer will, I take it, stop and pick up some of her own crowd. Of course it's a toss-up."
Pistol in hand the sub crept for'ard. For a minute or so, during which interval another shell burst astern of the boat, he exchanged words with the two men. Then he unbolted the hatch and came aft.
Presently the bowman and the motor-artificer (who had quite recovered consciousness) crawled through the hatchway, dragging lifebelts after them; While they were donning the life-saving gear a third shell pitched so close to the bows that the boat drove through the descending column of spray.
A similar proposition to the coxswain was rejected. Nothing would induce the little man to emerge from the cabin, where he was lying at full length upon the floor.