"Afraid!" repeated the other. "Ach! but suppose I take you down below you learn our secrets, eh?"
"We've captured so many of your boats that I don't think there are many secrets left for us to learn."
"Schweinehunden——" began the German angrily, but was interrupted by another man, presumably an officer also, who emerged from the hatch. The two remained in conversation for some moments, and then the Commander again addressed his prisoner.
"I shall put you where, for a time at least, you can do no harm," he said. "The rest will depend on yourself."
A moment later Lawless felt the throb of the submarine's oil-engines and the vessel, still awash, started to plunge forward. Soaked to the skin and shivering, for the water was cold despite the fact of its being a very warm night, he hoped that the commander would offer him something hot if nothing else, but the German appeared to have no such intention. He had mounted the platform on the conning tower, where, apparently, he was giving orders to the steersman. The fact that the English officer was clinging to the handrail on the for'ard deck and almost waist-deep in water, did not seem to trouble him in the least.
The vessel surged along through the darkness, and presently Lawless became aware of a familiar sound—the weird and melancholy clang of a bell-buoy. He now knew that the submarine was heading towards the coast, and was amazed at the German Commander's temerity in venturing so near when, at any moment, the searchlight of a passing warship or patrol boat might suddenly flash out upon him. And now the mournful clang of the bell-buoy grew louder, and a fanciful idea occurred to Lawless that it was tolling for the hundreds of men who had perished in the North Sea by mine and submarine. The U boat passed within twenty-five yards of it, then slowed down and came alongside a cage-buoy, round whose iron pillar one of the German sailors cast the bight of a rope.
"Now," said the Commander from his platform, "you can disembark."
"What?" inquired the Lieutenant, not quite grasping the situation.
"You must get on that buoy," answered the German. "If you're not washed off before morning you'll probably be rescued by one of your own ships."
Lawless, as he gazed at the plunging buoy, felt his heart sink. Tired out as he was, he strongly doubted his ability to cling on to the buoy for an hour, let alone a whole night.