THE FOURTH BOOK
THE MARCHIONESS HAS QUALMS
CHAPTER I
A freight submarine, the Bremen, had recently excited the wonderment of a world jaded with miracles by crossing from Helgoland to Norfolk with a cargo. But here was a war-ship that dived underneath the British blockade.
The dead of the Lusitania were still unrequited and unburied, but the Germans had graciously promised President Wilson to sink no more passenger-ships without warning, and they had been received back into the indulgence of the super-patient neutrals.
And now came the under-sea boat to test American hospitality. It was received with amazed politeness and the news flew through Newport, bringing the people flocking like children. An American submarine conducted its guest to anchorage. Mail for the ambassador was put ashore and courtesy visits were exchanged with the commandant of the Narragansett Bay Naval Station. In three hours the vessel, not to overstay the bounds of neutral hospitality, returned to the ocean.
A flotilla of American destroyers convoyed it outside and calmly watched while the monster halted nine ships off Nantucket, graciously permitted their crews and passengers to take themselves, but no belongings, into open boats; then torpedoed the vessels one after another.