Those aboard the destroyer had doubtless been on the watch for just such a sight as this for many weeks. Every seaman had been carefully drilled how to use his eyes in order to distinguish what the periscope of a submersible would look like if he ever had the luck to discover one sticking out of the water.
Jack and Amos, after making sure that this was indeed what they saw, closed their hands tight as a sensation akin to alarm passed over them. Would the submarine actually waste one of her valuable torpedoes on the small enemy, a destroyer? They were more inclined to believe the under-sea boat would be apt to dive, and thus slip away from danger.
Orders were hastily given. The speed of the boat suddenly changed as though it were a part of the scheme to confuse the Germans, who
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 might even then be observing them by means of their periscope.
But this was not to be the sum total of the destroyer’s programme. There came a sudden burst of firing, and the boys saw the water churned into foam around the spot where a few seconds before that queer tube had been sighted.
Nothing could be seen of the under-sea boat, which had evidently gone down after its custom. Already the destroyer had commenced to circle around the place, and everyone aboard strained his eyesight in order to see whether the first sign of the volley from the small guns had succeeded in its mission.
“Why, how still the water seems to be here,” remarked Amos. “Yet all around us the sea is moving in choppy little waves.”
“There may be a reason for that,” said Jack. “You know that sometimes vessels in distress during a storm at sea have found it worth while to tow a bag of oil after them. It helps to smooth the breaking billows a good deal.”
“But how would oil come here, Jack, because
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 we haven’t thrown any—oh! do you mean it looks as if the submarine had been struck when they sent that volley at the periscope?”
“That’s what I mean, and if you listen to what the men are saying you’ll see they think the same way,” Jack asserted.
“And if the boat was struck it may never come to the surface again, which would make a lot of jackies in the big fleet happy, I guess,” Amos concluded.
The destroyer circled the spot several times, but nothing was seen beyond some bubbles, and the oil on the surface of the sea. If the submarine had been wrecked they would never know it, because it must stay on the bottom of the sea, and the crew be suffocated as time passed. On the other hand, if it had not been seriously injured by now it was far away, and proceeding under the surface, perhaps heading so as to get at one of the battleships.
One of the first things to be done after communications with the shore had been effected would be to let the commander of the fleet know
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 about the presence of a small submarine, so that all extra precautions might be taken against a surprise.
“What happened, do you think, Jack?” wondered Amos, the gunners ready to let fly with another volley at the first sign of the enemy under-sea boat.
“Ask me something easy, please,” he was told. “They’re all hoping the submarine got her death wound, and will never come up again. I’m a little skeptical about that. It wouldn’t surprise me any to hear that before long some warship, perhaps a big one at that, had been torpedoed.”
“Those Germans are seldom caught asleep at the switch, are they?” asked Amos.
“Oh! they’re no better, no worse than others, I take it. The best of them will get caught napping sometimes. When they poked their periscope out so as to take a look around with the coming of daylight they never dreamed a sassy little destroyer was within a hundred feet of them.”
“Do you think they saw us, Jack?”
“As like as not they did, which would account
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 for the hurry they showed at sinking again. But the shot covered every foot of the water around where we saw that spying tube. And these gunners have all been instructed just how to shoot so as to bring about the destruction of a submersible.”
“Well, they’re giving it up, you see, Jack, and once more heading toward the lights ashore. I can see them much better now, so I reckon all this firing must have aroused the campers, who are starting up their fires, thinking of breakfast.”
“Another thing you notice, Amos, we’re not going straight any longer, but with a distinct wiggle, turning first to the right and then to the left.”
“Then, after all, they’re not so sure about that submarine, and this motion is for the purpose of avoiding being struck by a torpedo,” Amos suggested, as though he considered that ample explanation for the queer movements of the destroyer.
“No, you’re wrong there,” his chum explained. “I think they’ve got in mind the Turks ashore,
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 who must have a number of batteries mounted back yonder.”
“You mean they half expect to be shot at from now on?” Amos asked.
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we were,” Jack admitted. “Thanks to the sea fog that is drifting along the edge of the shore, they will have some trouble locating us. The commander knows what he’s about, you can depend on it, Amos. And I’m not going to worry any more than I can help.”
They were by this time approaching the shore, which they could see was inclined to be rocky and very rough. A shallow beach ran along under the little bluff, however, and a landing could be easily effected if they were not subjected to a hot bombardment from rapid-fire guns.
As Jack had said more than once, the soldiers ashore knew ver............