"Well?" said Max.
"It is all right," nodded Körner. "You can enjoy a good sleep, my friend. You will need it; because for some days and nights to come it is probable we shall both require to have very good eyesight."
Max turned into his bunk, but did not at once fall asleep. The intense silence and darkness kept him wakeful. He would much rather have been listening to the busy humming of the electric engines. At about midnight he turned on his pillow and spoke.
"Hermann!" he called.
There was no answer. He lay listening, and from one of the distant compartments there came to him the faint tap-tapping sound of the wireless instrument. It was too faint for him to hear distinctly enough to follow the message; and just as he was beginning to catch a word here and there, it stopped, and there was a long interval of silence, during which he fell asleep, not to be awakened again until late on the following morning. The petrol engines were at work, a dim gleam of daylight came in through the thick glass of an uncovered skylight. A servant was busy laying breakfast on the little table in the middle of the cabin.
"We are under weigh, then?" cried Max, speaking to the man in German.
"Ja, mein Herr. Since eight o'clock."
Max glanced up at the tell-tale compass above the table, and saw that the course was due west.
"It is the direction of America, mein Herr," said the servant, following his glance.
Max dressed and went out on deck. The dummy funnels and the false bulwarks were raised. There was a ragged red ensign flying from the mast. No land was in sight, and the sea was clear of shipping; but in the wake he presently discovered the swiftly moving periscopes of two other submarines. Lieutenant Körner was on deck, but there were seamen about, and Max suppressed his desire to go up to him and question him.