"Anything in sight?" he queried.
"Nothing at all," replied Mr. Bolt. "It's a bit hazy to the northward," he added, "but the skyline is quite clear ahead."
Hardly had the chief officer finished speaking when a shot—apparently coming from nowhere—shrieked overhead between the Glenholme's masts. A moment later the report of a gun came rolling down the wind. Groome hurriedly snatched up his binocular glasses and peered into the haze out abeam.
"Great Scot!" he exclaimed. "A submarine! Hard-a-port, my son. Let her go off to south."
The helmsman ground his wheel over, and not a moment too soon, for a white line, like the trail of a shooting star, streaked athwart the surface of the waters. A torpedo had been discharged at the Glenholme, but as she swerved and swung from her course the deadly missile passed harmlessly ahead.
"Murderous devils!" ejaculated Mr. Bolt. "Attacking an unarmed ship with both gunfire and torpedoes."
"Pass the word to the engineer to give her every pound of steam," shouted Groome.
As the morning haze lifted the submarine came into clear view—a dark, sinister shape. She gave chase while the Glenholme made off at her topmost speed. Engineers and stokers did their best, and steam hissed from her safety-valve as, on a zigzag course, she fled. Meanwhile the pursuing craft hung doggedly in her track. The submarine, however, discharged no more torpedoes; probably the German commander did not wish to deplete his stock of these expensive weapons.
Gradually the pursuer closed with her quarry, until she was not more than a mile distant, and then her twelve-pounder gun began to bark viciously. Having found the range, the Germans fairly pounded the Glenholme with bursting shell, battering her deck-houses and funnel into masses of twisted steel.
Groome and his crew did their duty well. They were game, quite game, to the finish. The captain, alert and watchful, stood beside the helmsman and directed the steering in such a manner as to keep the hostile craft dead astern. Presently a flying splinter of shell gashed his leg below the knee, and blood trickled into his boot as he bound up the wound. Nevertheless, he kept his vessel going at top speed, for he knew that British warships were patrolling the Mediterranean, and while the chase lasted there still remained the chance that a swift destroyer might suddenly loom up on the skyline and rush to the assistance of his stricken and harrassed vessel.