"Is it? Then you're jolly well mistaken," retorted the stroke of the whaler, as he ostentatiously spat upon his hands and gripped a boat-stretcher.
The German's beady eyes contracted, and, thinking that discretion is ever the better art of valour, he shrugged his shoulders, and then winced with pain.
There was soon no doubt as to the type and nationality of the approaching craft. She was a U-boat. She was running on the surface. On the platform in the wake of the elongated conning-tower stood two men in black oilskins. At times completely enveloped in clouds of spray, they were intently searching the horizon either on the watch for likely prey or else keeping a sharp look-out for the dreaded British submarine-hunters.
"Looks like giving us the go-by after all," whispered one of the whaler's men, as the U-boat bore broadside on at a distance of about three-quarters of a mile.
"Let her," added his mate fervently. "Us don't want to see the likes of she just now. I'd give a month's pay to have her at yon range for twenty seconds."
"O, Lud!" exclaimed another with a grunt "she's starboarding helm. She's spotted us, lads!"
Clearly the whaler's crew were "in the soup", for the U-boat had altered course and was bearing down upon the luckless British seamen. Four or five hands made their way for'ard of the German craft's conning-tower, and in a few seconds a 4.7-inch gun rose from its place of concealment. Quickly the sinister weapon was manned and trained full at the helpless boat's crew.
"Murderous swine!" exclaimed the bowman, shaking his fist in futile defiance of the pirates.
Moments of intense suspense followed, yet the Huns refrained from opening fire. It might have been a matter for precaution that the quick-firer was trained upon the whaler; but, on the other hand, there was abundant evidence in the past to prove that the modern pirates had no scruples about murdering in cold blood the survivors of torpedoed merchantmen.
The while the officers outside the conning-tower were still busy with their binoculars. One of them kept the whaler under observation, while the other, evidently fearing a trap, swept the waste of water in case the periscope of a British submarine were watching Fritz with a view to blowing him to atoms.