“Faith and would ye shake a man's arrum off!” shouted Hogan at nobody in particular. “And are ye going back to meet the friendly little wasp?”
That was exactly what Caradoc was doing. He had swung the Vulcan about in less than a hundred yard circle and was plowing straight back the way they had come.
The crowd on the poop held their breath at the daring maneuver. Tug and submarine were now rushing at each other full tilt, only one ran under water, the other on the surface. Suppose the submarine should thrust up a periscope for an instant—a cough of the torpedo tube and the Vulcan would be blown to scrap iron.
The men on the poop ran forward, staring with frightened eyes over the gray-green soggy field through which the Vulcan ripped her way.
It seemed fantastic to think that somewhere under that lifeless weed human beings spun swiftly along, freighted with the most terrific engine of destruction. What strange warfare! Who could have fancied that when savages began to use clubs to maul each other it would end in this diabolical refinement! Weapons,
