When the crash had come Ned Slade felt himself thrown back against a deck stanchion, which he grasped desperately. In the instant of the collision, or so immediately following it as to make it seem simultaneous, he had observed a big hole torn in the side of the Sherman.

Stunned and shaken, he clung to the stanchion while all about him were confused shouts and orders and the rushing to and fro of many feet.

Almost as if in a dream, Ned saw the dark shape that had smashed into the troopship slowly back away—pull itself out of the great gash that had been cut. Then the fog swallowed it up.

He had slid to the deck after being hurled against the stanchion, and now he pulled himself to his feet again. As he did so he saw himself surrounded by a number of officers and men who had not been standing near him when the crash came. They looked from Ned to the hole in the[134] side of the transport, and then out into the fog.

“What was it?” some one asked.

“I—I don’t know,” confusedly murmured Ned. And then it occurred to him that he did know—that he had seen exactly what had happened. So he answered: “A steamer crashed into us. She’s out there!”

He pointed to the mist that was thicker than ever.

“What ship was it?”

“Did you see the name?”

“Why doesn’t she stand by and give assistance?”

“I didn’t notice what the name was,” he managed to answer. “She just crashed into us—right here—and then she backed out.” He pointed to the gaping hole.

“Queer she backed out again,” commented a ship’s officer. “She might better have held her nose in the hole. That is, if it’s below the water line. But it isn’t,” he added quickly, as he leaned over the rail to take an observation. “We’re safe, so far. The lowest part of the hole is above the water line. But why doesn’t she let us know who she is? Why doesn’t she signal?”

It was queer, the absolute absence of sound from the other craft. Except for that gaping hole, it was as though she had been a figment of the imagination.

[135]

“She doesn’t whistle,” said the officer, who had looked over the side, “and I don’t hear any shouting. Surely she’s still near enough for us to hear from her. Are you sure it was a vessel?” he asked Ned. “Who else was here with you at the time?”

That question gave Ned a shock. That was it! Who had been with him at the time?

Why of course Jerry, Bob and Professor Snodgrass. And there was some one else—the sailor from whose person the little scientist had been about to remove a bug. It all came back to Ned now.

“Are you sure it was a vessel?” the officer asked again. “It may have been an iceberg. I’ve been bumped by them more than once.”

“It was a vessel,” answered Ned, and his mind was struggling with two matters. One was to answer the questions put to him, and the other was to try to think what had become of Bob, Jerry and the professor. He was confusing things.

“It was a vessel,” he went on. “I could see the camouflage paint on her. She slammed right into us and then backed off.”

“That’s queer,” murmured the officer. “If she was under steam she could blow her whistle, and even if she was disabled, as we are, she could ring a bell. But there isn’t a sound.”

“It must have been an iceberg,” declared another[136] officer. “That would account for everything—even the silence.”

“It wasn’t an iceberg!” declared Ned. “I saw the camouflage paint. And look! You can see where some of it is scraped of............