Both lads leaned against the machinery¹, limp, dripping cold perspiration². Caradoc was the first to speak.  
"Didn't have its war head in!"
 
Leonard mumbled³ something through the slime in his mouth.
 
"I ought to find the connection and explode it," repeated Caradoc doggedly⁴.
 
Madden moved weakly over beside him. "No you won't. You aren't going to murder us all... not going to do it!"
 
Caradoc remained motionless, his long face gray under the electric lights. "I fail—at everything," he mumbled.
 
Leonard sat down on the edge of the torpedo⁵ case and looked at the long, slender destroyer. He had a watery⁶ feeling, as if just arising from a long illness.
 
"Let's get out of here," he breathed.
 
"Wait... we must seem normal. You—you look blue—spotted⁷."
 
"I feel blue and spotted. I was scared—never was so scared in all my life."
 
"Sit here till you get over your j-jolt."
 
"What are you going to do?" asked the American apprehensively⁸ as Smith arose.
 
"I must disable this machinery and give the tug⁹ a chance to escape."
 
"Still got that in your head?"
 
"I must do something—I ought to explode that torpedo!"
 
"You're not going to do that, Caradoc. You're not! I have no—no appetite to be a martyr¹⁰."
 
The Englishman made no reply, but began moving around among the machinery with the crowbar. Leonard stirred himself to follow.
 
"You—you're not up to anything—not going to blow us up?"
 
"No, I'm not going to blow you up. That's my word."
 
Oddly enough, Madden accepted it very simply, and went back and sat on the torpedo case. He fell to stroking the smooth steel flank of the thing as if it were some animal. The thing had, as it were, refused to blow him to bits at Smith's request.
 
The Englishman walked about busily, thrusting his bar in among dial connections, snapping brass¹¹ pipes, wrecking¹² the telephone connections. He laid about him viciously, knocking, crashing, smashing. Then he hurried back into the rear compartment¹³, knocked to pieces the bearings and valves of the Deisel engine, tangled¹⁴ up the wiring of the storage batteries and the dynamo, beat off her brushes, disrupted the clutch on the crank shaft¹⁵.
 
It was shocking to Madden to see Caradoc smash and destroy such delicate and costly¹⁶ machinery. He went about his task with a kind of bottled ferocity, and in a short time the submarine looked as if it had let loose a cyclone¹⁷. Presently the youth paused in his vandalism and glanced about with satisfaction.
 
"All right," he said in a more normal tone, "if you are ready to go, get a wrench¹⁸ and a cold-chisel, smudge your face with a little oil and iron black, and we'll get away from here."
 
Madden saw the importance of completing his disguise in this manner. He splotched his face, found the tools indicated by Smith in the locker¹⁹, then walked out through the manhole into the passageway once more.
 
There was no one in sight as they came out. They passed up through the cool refrigerating room and through the machine shop with its contented²⁰ workmen. Madden wondered how those men would feel if they knew that a few minutes past, they were hanging on the fringe of eternity²¹.
 
The two smudged tool-bearers, who walked rather shakily to the upper deck, did not even provoke a questioning glance from the workmen. A few minutes later the boys emerged once more from the sleeping deck onto the boat deck. It was still deserted²² save for the solitary²³ guard who paced back and forth²⁴ in stiff military fashion.
 
Caradoc moved down to the hanging laundry and paused under the port hood²⁵. He tapped it gently. From the interior came Malone's thick whisper. Smith passed in the tools and whispered.
 
"Force the door open gently. Walk out as if you were sailors. Close the door and pretend to lock it. Meet me out here at the head of the ship's ladder, where the guard is stationed."
 
"Very well, sir," came a whisper.
 
Then Madden and Smith strolled on down toward the man with the gun. As they walked, Smith whispered:
 
"When you hear me clear my throat, get within striking distance. When I cough, silence him. I'll help you."
 
Madden nodded slightly, and the two drew near the pacing guard. Caradoc lifted hand to forehead as they passed and a little later seated themselves on the rail near the ladder. Madden looked down curiously²⁶ and thought he could make out the shape of the dinghy below, but was not certain.
 
The American's nerves still tingled²⁷ from the torpedo incident, and now he glanced out of the tail of his eye at the guard, whom he would probably have to fight.
 
The fellow was a broad-chested, short-necked German, armed with rifle and bayonet. The bayonet had a bluish gleam under the incandescent²⁸.
 
It was a queer thought to Madden to know that within the next fifteen minutes, he would perhaps be under rifle fire, rowing or swimming away through the black night, or he might be dead. Dead, and the world would end for him, and the war of the world or the peace of the world would be all the same for him.
 
Madden shrugged²⁹ his shoulders, drew a long breath and stared out in the direction of the Vulcan. He could see nothing of the tug. The moon had sunk and the stars burned with a more vivid fire. The musing³⁰ boy noted³¹ the position of the Hydra³², and fancied it might be somewhere near midnight. Just then his guess was confirmed by four double strokes of the bell. There would be a change of guards. Perhaps the next man would not be so unsuspecting.
 
Just then Madden observed another deck gang coming up the promenade³³. He wondered how often they scrubbed deck on this vessel³⁴. He hoped this crew would soon pass, as it would make escape impossible if their men made a break whi............