There was no need for the order to be repeated a second time. The men, who knew quite well what was coming, were only waiting for the word. Indeed, in one part of the ship, the captain's orders had been anticipated by no less a person than Rudolf Stork.

There is little doubt that-had the submarine not appeared when it did-the days of Rudolf Stork had been numbered, then and there. Had Captain Crouch found Stork upon the poop, signalling to the enemy, he would have shot him like a dog, without a moment's hesitation. But, during the brief space of time whilst Jimmy was in the captain's cabin, the submarine had drawn quite close to the "Harlech"; and in the immediate presence of this new and more certain peril Crouch-and Jimmy also-forgot all about the ship's carpenter who had betrayed all on board.

There is every reason to suppose that Stork knew well enough the plans of the German commander. Possibly, he had known all along that the "Harlech" was doomed. He understood that the so-called submarine blockade was to be carried out with ruthless energy and perseverance, and that the lives of neutrals, even of women and children, were not likely to be held of much account.

He was therefore in the greater haste to get quit of the ship; and for this his position on the poop-the stern part of the vessel-offered him an opportunity which he was not likely to refuse.

Hoisted alongside the demolished round-house, where most of the ship's stores were kept, was a small gig, not much larger than a dinghy, used as a rule for harbour work. It so happened that when all hands were called on deck by the shrill note of the boatswain's whistle, the cook and the cook's mate had hastened from the galley to the poop; and it was these two men that Stork summoned to his assistance.

Without much difficulty, they lowered the dinghy, and had even launched it in the water, before Crouch had given the order for the boats to be manned. To lower a rope was the work of a minute; and before any one was aware that the ship's carpenter had left the ship, Stork and the two cooks were rowing frantically for the shore. There was no question but that they would reach the coast in safety. The dinghy was quite seaworthy; the damage done to the ship's boats during the bombardment from the "Dresden" had been repaired upon the voyage. The night was clear, the sea perfectly calm, and the shore-as we have said-not far away.

In the meantime, the German commander continued to issue his orders. Crouch still remained upon the bridge.

"Lower a gangway!" cried the German.

"A gangway!" echoed Crouch in open derision. "Do you think that we're a pack of school-girls that can't swarm down a rope? For why should we want a gangway?"

For some reason or other this seemed to infuriate the German.

"Do as you are told," he roared; "and don't argue the point with me. Lower a gangway at once. Do you imagine I intend to waste one of our finest Krupp torpedoes on a cargo ship of not five thousand tons! No, sir, we are not such fools in Germany. As soon as you and your crew are off, it will be short work, with such a cargo as you carry, to send her sky high with a bomb."

Crouch said nothing more, but came down from the bridge like a beaten man. It was when he gained the main-deck that he remembered Rudolf Stork, and went aft, with a set look upon his face and a loaded revolver in his hand.

When he reached the poop, he was furious when he saw what had happened. Not only was the dinghy gone, but the rope-by means of which Stork and the two cooks had managed to escape-was dangling at the ship's side.

"The rascal!" Crouch hissed between his teeth. Then, thrusting his revolver into a coat pocket, he clenched his fist, and shook it at the stars.

"If ever I get the chance," he muttered, "I'll be even with that rogue. I've been a blind fool, all along."

He returned to the main-deck, and supervised the lowering of the boats, in which there was ample accommodation for the crew. This work was carried out in the utmost haste; all on board knew well enough that the submarine commander would hold to his word, that they had five minutes-and not a second longer-in which to make good their escape.

Still, there was not much time to spare when the four boats were rowed round to the foot of the gangway steps, down which filed the crew, the ship's officers and engineers, each one with a bundle under his arm, in which he carried his most prized possessions.

Grim resolution, smothered anger, and deep sullen dejection-these were the sentiments that were imprinted on the face of every man. They were helpless, and they knew it. The German had spoken truly; the submarine, fragile, slender and evil-looking, was the absolute master of the situation. The will of the submarine commander was the law, immutable and rigid. They had no option but to obey, without question and in haste.

Crouch remained on deck until-as he thought-every man had descended to the boats. Then he himself took his place on the stern seat of the last boat to leave the ship. One after the other, they rowed away in the darkness, the rhythmic plashing of the oars growing fainter and fainter in the distance, and seeming to strike upon the silence of the night a note of sadness that was not out of keeping with the scene: the gentle moonshine on the water, the distant, rugged hills, and the ship-forsaken, listless, doomed. Some such thought may have entered into the mind of the German officer himself, standing on the conning-tower of the boat that he commanded, miles away from the Fatherland he loved and the lighted cafés of Berlin.

However that may be, he had evidently no intention of failing in what he conceived to be his duty. The submarine drew slowly alongside the gangway steps. The commander ascended to the main-deck, followed by a seaman who carried in his hand a great egg-shaped thing, from the top of which protruded the head of a fuse. It was a bomb, timed to explode precisely two minutes after the lighting of the fuse. Of a certainty, the "Harlech," of the house of Jason, Stileman and May, was doomed, sentenced to be destroyed.

None the less, the German officer was in no haste. Leaving the sailor at the head of the companion-ladder, he entered the captain's cabin, overhauled the ship's papers, and even helped himself to a box of cigars which had been given to Crouch by Mr. Jason, Junior, on the day he left New York.

At the very moment this was happening, Captain Crouch himself, holding the tiller ropes in his hands, sat in the stern seat of the last boat like a man who is in a dream. Stern and hard as he was, accustomed to rule both circumstance and men by sheer force of will, he found this great calamity by no means easy to bear. It was no simple matter to realize the full extent of what had happened. He had been specially chosen to carry out a difficult and dangerous mission; and he had failed. It was not in his nature to think of what excuse he should make; he was prepared to take the blame. He knew now that he had made an irreparable mistake, that he had been deceived. And that brought back his mind to Rudolf Stork.

From Stork his thoughts turned naturally to Jimmy Burke; and then it was that he remembered, with the suddenness of an electric shock, that he had not seen the boy go on board any one of the boats. He thought it over quickly. Jimmy could not be in the dinghy, for he had caught sight of the boy on the main-deck after the dinghy had been launched. He was also equally certain that Jimmy had not descended the gangway when the crew manned the boats.

For once in his life-probably the only time on record-Captain Crouch was alarmed. He knew now that he had wronged the stowaway, and in the deep dejection of the moment was inclined to be unjust to himself, forgetting that, from the first, the circumstantial evidence had been all against the boy.

As he sat silent, motionless and downcast, he turned, and looked back at the dark outline of the forsaken, stricken ship. And little did he dream of the deed of unexampled heroism, of the scene of such vital and dramatic interest that even then was being enacted on board.

As the German officer tested Crouch's best cigars, lifting one after the other to his ear to see that they were dry, a face appeared at the porthole on the port side of the ship. It was the face of Jimmy Burke-a white, scared face, upon which, however, was the cast of resolution.

The German went out on to the main-deck on the starboard side, where he took the bomb from the sailor's hands. Thence he passed down the companion-ladder, along the alley-way to the engine-room, where he descended the trellised stairway, step by step.

On the floor of the engine-room, in the very base of the ship, he deposited his bomb, and then, stooping, struck a match and lit the end of the fuse.

At that, he ran up the steps, dashed out upon the forward well-deck, and hastened down the gangway. And at the very moment he set foot on board his submarine, Jimmy Burke appeared suddenly in the alley-way, from the direction of the engineers' mess-room, where he had been hiding. Thence, he ran to the engine-room, and at the top of the steps paused a moment to look down.

In the midst of the vast machinery, now idle and seemingly inert, but still droning from the effect of compressed, wasted steam, upon the black, oily floor, lay the egg-shaped German bomb. A little spurt of blue smoke was issuing in coils from the burning fuse, of which not more than two inches now remained.

With a loud cry that he was not able to suppress, the boy dashed down the stairs.

CHAPTER XV-The Penitence of Captain Crouch

It can scarcely be denied that danger, and even death itself, are more terrible from a distance than when they actually stare us in the face. The truth is that, in moments of intense nervous strain, there is little time for the imagination to run riot; and-as the greatest of all poets has told us-it is imagination, more than anything else, that causes fear and panic. A time of emergency is a time for action, when it is better to do than to think. And always is it wiser and more manful to strive for success than to pause to consider, even for a single instant, the possibilities of failure.

Jimmy Burke, as he hastened down the engine-room steps, was concerned with one thing only: to reach the bomb before it was timed to explode. Had he waited to consider what would happen should he be too late, it is more than probable that he would have failed; he would never have lived to tell the tale. As it was, breathless and expectant, with a cold perspiration broken out upon his forehead, and his heart thumping violently against his ribs, he reached the infernal machine in the very nick of time. Seizing the burning end of the fuse between a thumb and finger, he crushed it out: and thus was the "Harlech" saved.

None the less, to make doubly sure of success, he carried the bomb up the staircase to the alley-way, where he threw it down an ash-shoot into the sea.

In the meantime Captain Crouch, seated on the stern seat of the last boat to leave the ship, found himself-as the saying goes-between the hammer and the anvil, between Scylla and Charybdis. He was anxious to make amends for the fatal mistake that he had made; to save, if possible, the life of the boy who was still upon the ship. And on that account, he found himself in something of a dilemma.

If he put back to the "Harlech," he imperilled the lives of every man in the boat; and he felt some doubt as to whether he was justified in doing that. He thought over the matter quickly, and then resolved to speak the truth.

"My lads," said he to his men, "all the voyage through I've done a great injustice to that boy of ours. He was a stowaway, right enough, but as loyal as I am. Even to-night, he did his utmost to warn me of danger ahead-he played the part of a man. Now, I ask you a fair question, and I want a straight answer, such as a sailor has a right to expect. For some reason or other, the boy has been left behind; and the ship-as you know-is doomed. She may have another minute to live; but the chances are that in a few seconds she'll be sent sky-high, blown to smithereens. Now, here's the point: are we to go back, and try to save the lad, or shall we row ahead for the shore? Yes, or no? There's no betwixt and between in a matter such as this."

The men in the boat did not take long to make up their minds. They were all British born-men whose forbears for generation after generation had earned their bread upon the sea. And nowhere else is the spirit of self-sacrifice and honest heroism more dearly fostered, nowhere else is a finer school for courage, than upon the broad waters of the ocean where young and old, from the forecastle to the galley, from the North Sea trawler to the Atlantic liner, take their fortunes in their hands and run the danger of their lives amid the wild typhoons of the southern seas, the blizzards of the Horn, and the icebergs of the Arctic. As one man, they offered to return to the stricken ship, to endeavour to save the stowaway.

Turning the boat round, they rowed in desperation, for their own lives also were at stake. The moonlight now seemed brighter than before; the few clouds had shifted; a light wind had sprung up from the west which formed endless ripples upon the surface of the sea, that glistened everywhere like myriads of spangles.

They could see the dark hull of the doomed ship, looming large against the sky-line. She lay there in the midst of the night, helpless and silent, like the great carcase of some stranded mammoth beast. And though these men rowed in a kind of frenzy, straining every nerve and muscle to the utmost, there was little hope in their hearts.

By now, the submarine had drawn away from the "Harlech." Lying upon the surface of the water, she was like a spider that watches its prey from the centre of its web. The hatch of her conning-tower was closed. The "Harlech," the U93 and the boat in which was Captain Crouch, stood to one another in the relation of the corners of an equilateral triangle. Waves were breaking against the superstructure of the submarine-waves that were white as silver in the bright light of the moon.

Suddenly, Crouch let out a cry, and pointed excitedly towards the east.

"Look there!" he shouted. "A destroyer!"

Every man turned his eyes in the direction indicated; and there, sure enough, standing out upon the sky-line, clearly silhouetted and looking like the teeth of a broken comb, were the four funnels of a torpedo-boat-destroyer, from which proceeded a long, black trail of smoke that lay low and almost parallel to the surface of the sea.

The destroyer rushed through the water as an arrow comes singing through the air. Even as they looked, she grew larger and more distinct; until, presently, they could hear the throbbing of her engines and see the churned water lashed by the revolutions of her screws.

The U93 dived like a startled duck. In a few seconds she was gone.

The destroyer, which was originally heading straight for the "Harlech," now changed her course, and began to move round in circles, steaming at topmost speed, in her movements for all the world like a joyful dog on a lawn.

When the ship's boat was not more than a hundred yards from the "Harlech," the destroyer drew to within speaking distance, and the lieutenant-commander upon the bridge shouted to Captain Crouch.

"Have you seen the U93?" he asked.

"Seen her!" cried Crouch. "Why, she's not a cable's length from where you are. We have been turned out of our berths, and given five minutes in which to leave the ship; and there's a bomb on board which should have exploded before now."

At that, the British commander appeared vastly excited, raising his voice even louder.

"Then, man alive, keep your distance!" he bellowed. "If the explosion takes place, that boat of yours is as likely as not to be scuttled by a falling spar. You're heading the wrong way, man! Put about, get your distance, and stand clear while the trouble's on."

"I'm going back," calmly answered Crouch, whose men had never ceased to row. "I'm going back to the ship, to save a boy who has been left on board."

At that, the officer gave vent to an exclamation of surprise, and then, raising his night glasses, vowed that he could see some one on the forecastle-peak, waving his arms about him wildly, like one who calls for assistance.

"Row ahead!" Crouch shouted to his men. "Row for all you're worth! That bomb has misfired, or I'm a Prussian. We'll save the stowaway yet."

A few more strong strokes of the oars, and the boat drew alongside the foot of the gangway steps. Crouch, agile as a panther, sprang on to the footboard, and racing to the main-deck, came on a sudden face to face with Jimmy.

"Come off!" he cried. "There's no time to spare."

Jimmy Burke could not refrain from smiling.

"It's all right," said he in a quiet voice. "It's all right; the ship's saved. There is no danger any longer."

Crouch, catching his breath, stared at the boy in amazement.

"Saved!" he repeated.

"Yes. The bomb has been thrown overboard. I stayed on board to do it."

For at least a minute, Captain Crouch uttered never a word. Then, quietly, without any show of haste, he took his pipe from his pocket, filled it, struck a match and lit it, and puffed a cloud of smoke into the air.

"I've known many men," said he at last, "and I've seen most parts of the world. I was first introduced to danger-if I might call it so-when I was little more than a lad, and we've kept up a nodding acquaintance ever since. I've known different kinds of danger, too-all the family relations, so to speak: jungle fever, malaria, cholera and Black Jack; lions, tigers, rogue-elephants and buffalo, and the last's an ugly customer when he's wounded-you may take my word for that; I've seen war, shipwreck, cannibals, pygmies and sudden death; and I've known men who could hold their own in the midst of the whole boiling lot. But I've never seen, or heard, or read of, a finer thing, my boy, than you have done to-night. I say that because I mean it; and there's a hand to shake."

And Captain Crouch held out a hand which Jimmy took, to find himself held fast as in a grip of iron.

"I ask your pardon, lad," said Captain Crouch. "I did you a monstrous wrong. The evidence was against you, that's true enough. None the less, I might have found out the truth before now. But I didn't. So it's up to you to forgive."

Jimmy Burke knew not what to say. Indeed, he felt a little awkward. He was undemonstrative by nature, and Crouch still held his hand.

"I ask your pardon, lad," said the captain again. "I shan't feel happy till you've told me I'm forgiven."

"Of course, sir," said Jimmy, "I forgive. And after all, it was only natural you should think as you did; the evidence was very black against me."

Crouch let go the boy's hand, and walked quickly to the head of the gangway. There he told the men in the boat below that the ship had been saved, and ordered them to ascend at once to the main-deck. After which, the captain himself hastened to the bridge, and there let loose the siren.

The loud shriek of the ship's hooter broke upon the silence of the night, to be echoed back from the Cornish hills, and to die away in the distance upon the moonlit sea. It was the signal for the other boats to return.

Time and again, Crouch sent out his message; and in between the hootings of the siren, the little, wizened sea-captain paced to and fro upon the bridge of the "Harlech" with quick and eager steps, his hands folded behind his back and his head enveloped in the cloud of smoke that issued from the bowl of his pipe. And in the meantime, His Majesty's ship "Cockroach" – a destroyer with a displacement of over nine hundred tons and a designed speed of thirty knots an hour, burning oil fuel only and armed with three four-inch guns and four torpedo-tubes-was flying hither and thither in the darkness like a mad dog in a storm.