Signs were not lacking that this peremptory action had thrown the Spaniards into a state of panic. Apart from the threat of being sunk, they realised what the dire result would be of a shell exploding the highly inflammable cargo. Some of the crew rushed to lower the boats. The captain and some of his officers on the tanker's bridge were beside themselves with terror.
"Stop instantly," signalled the pirate.
Some one on board the Mendez Nunez—certainly it was not the captain—rang down for the engines to be reversed. The tanker soon lost way, and was presently lying head to wind in the long Atlantic swell.
With her machine-gun mounted on the bridge and trained upon the Spaniard, and with every available man conspicuously displaying his automatic pistol, the Alerte was cautiously manoeuvred to come alongside the prize. There was very little risk to the submarine's hull. Her false upperworks might be stove in. The danger lay in the fact that the Alerte might fracture the light steel hull-plates of the tanker, in which case the former would have to do without the precious oil.
"Get your fenders out!" shouted Captain Cain to the still dumbfounded crew of the Mendez Nunez.
Apparently some of the Spaniards understood English, or else they realised the intentions of the approaching Alerte. Three large fenders made of faggots bound with wire rope were lowered over the starboard side.
With a heavy jar, the pirate craft and the Mendez Nunez came together. One of the fenders nipped as the two craft ground each other's sides and was flattened like a pancake. Another carried away. The partially lowered boat was crushed to matchwood. Rolling a full fifteen degrees, the huge tanker stove in ten feet of the Alerte's bulwarks and buckled the stanchions at one end of her bridge.
"An hour of this and we won't have a shred of upperworks left," expostulated Pengelly. "Sheer off, sir, while we have the chance."
For a wonder, Captain Cain concurred. With her port screw going full astern, the Alerte drew clear of her prey.
It was no intention on the part of the pirate captain to abandon the attempt. Easing down a cable's length to leeward, he signalled HNT—"Smooth sea by pouring oil on it."