Well, the bully was shockingly put out. Clenching his fists, he advanced upon the Frenchman and struck an attitude.
"You son of a blue livered pig, what do you mean by that?"
"Précisément—exactly what I say. You are the wind-bag. Then why tell monsieur that it is Cape Wrath when I shall say it is the Holy Island?"
"The Holy Island be jowned. I say it's Cape Wrath, and the man as don't say it with me is going to smell the outside of this," and he thrust his fist toward his adversary's nose, and in another moment would have knocked him down. Then was the Frenchman's opportunity. He had come on deck with a heavy oil-can in his hand, and now he gave it a pinch, and the filthy stuff squirted full into Red Roger's face and went streaming down his neck almost to his boots. Uttering a howl of rage that might have terrified the boldest, the bully sprang upon his enemy and sought to throttle him where he stood. A vain hope. The Leopard deserved his nickname, and ducking with the agility of an animal, he let the red man leap headlong into the sea.
I thought he had gone clean overboard, and was already on my way to the engine-room hatch when a roar of laughter arrested me and I learned the truth. Not only had the Leopard pitched his man into the sea, but he had caught him by the ankle as he did so, and there he held him while the fellow's head was now in, now out of the water, and his wicked oaths were choked by the waves before they were wholly uttered.
"That Cape Wrath, eh, mon enfant? Shall you now say what is the lie? Ho, ho, you speak polite and I dry you before the fire. Is he Cape Wrath—no, by crambo! you say, and that the truth. He not Cape Wrath at all; you have took the medicine, and now you know."
He hauled him up from the sea while he spoke and laid him dripping on the deck. All the fight was clean gone out of Red Roger by this time, and not a little of the dirt. The brine had almost choked him and he was black in the face. What ultimately would have happened to him I cannot tell you. The swell was now rising so rapidly that it was dangerous to stand on the platform at all, and we all made our way below with what speed we could. Then for twenty-eight hours the Zero lay deep at the bottom of the North Sea, while the gale raged above and the winds blew tempestuously.
I shall always think this conquest of the deep by a submarine one of the most wonderful things that man has achieved. Here were we, caught suddenly by a hurricane off Holy Island in the North Sea and yet able to drop gently below the waves and to lie there until wind and sea had fallen.
Seated with Osbart in the saloon, for Black did not dine with us that night, we watched the great projectors throwing their powerful rays upon the shelving banks of sand; we lived in a world upon which the eyes of man had never looked. Great fish were to be seen here and there; monstrous crabs crawling upon their prey; shoals of silver mackerel with the dog-fish darting amidst them and devouring them fearfully. Elsewhere, all would be as still as in some temple of the ocean's mysteries. The water had no motion here; there was no life upon the shelving banks; the rank weeds did not lift to any swell. And here we lay for twenty-eight hours, the air in our cabins made light by the liquid oxygen we carried, and a glorious feeling of security following us to our hiding place.
The gale was quite abated when we rose to the surface at last, to see the flashing lights of the Spurn Head vessel, and to know that we stood almost in the mouth of the Humber. Black had joined Osbart and myself at dinner previously, and we found him in the lightest of moods. His mad adventure was still the mainstay of his conversation, and it could be doubted no longer that he meant to carry it out. With Osbart he was unusually playful; but the Doctor had no lack of courage when the time came, and he answered his taunts quite honestly.
"I'm stark afraid of England, and that's the truth, Black. Set me down in any other country and you'll not find a better man. You'd be the same yourself if you'd stood before an English jury and heard a red devil with ermine about his neck send you to the scaffold. I've done it, and you're asking me to go in a second time. Well, if it were any other man living, I'd blow his brains out or he should blow mine. But if you go, I go——"
Black laughed until the glasses rang.
"Why, Doctor," says he, "would you have me hitch you to the Bell buoy and leave you there until we sail out? Come, man, keep up your spirits—or put 'em down if the rum suits you better. I'm going ashore to fetch Ned Jolly out of the Sunk Island Fort here, and you're coming with me. If they take us, turn King's evidence and string the lot of us. But you ought to know me better; you ought to know that when Black has a mind to do a thing, it's half done already. I'm going into that fort to fetch Ned out, and there isn't a ship afloat that could stop me. What's more, I'm going to send Whitehall a telegram when I've done it, so help me thunder."
We stared at him in amazement.
"A telegram, Captain?"
"Why not? The station's on Sunk Island Point. Ned does sentry-go there, and they've trained dogs to help him. You must give these dogs a dose of medicine, Doctor. That's your job, while I fetch out Neddy. If so be he's on sentry-go to-night, it's easier than cracking walnuts. If he's not, why, then I must set my wits to work. But what I want you both to understand is that this is no red work and that no man's life is to pay forfeit. We'll enjoy ourselves, my lads, and the fun should be fast enough. You may both stand in the tower with me, if you like and see it——"
He never doubted that we would accept, and draining his glass, he led the way down the long corridor to the tower of which I have told you. I have already said that this was a new Captain Black to me: a man grown more daring in many ways and less prudent in some. His talk of a telegram, for instance, proved to me that he no longer doubted that his escape was known in London. I saw in him a gambler staking his all upon the throw, and I understood that even his courage might not keep him many weeks upon the seas. And yet I have often thought how premature that judgment really was and how little the world knew of him.
The conning-tower of the Zero is a wonderful tribute to the skill of the famous French engineer Guichard. There are some of the most beautiful instruments of navigation that even modern science has constructed. All the work of the ship can be done from the tower; the discharging of her fire torpedoes; her rising to the surface or sinking below; her manœuvres, and the control of her engines if need be. Here also is an instrument something like a telephone. You put it to your ear and can distinguish every sound that comes down through the water: the siren of a steamer or a lighthouse, the propellers and paddles of ships, and even the beat of oars. Another switch turns on the great electric projectors; there are speaking-tubes to communicate with the crew; and, by no means less remarkable, a knob beneath a glass case which, should danger threaten the Zero in the depths, instantly releases a great weight from her bottom, and sends her to the surface as though she were a cork.
These instruments I came to know more intimately as the days went on; but I confess to thinking less of them than of ourselves when we followed Black to the tower and he shut the doors of steel behind us. It was now about nine o'clock on a May evening, and we stood some five miles from the Spurn Head light-ship. A peaceful sea showed us countless herring boats, which I did not doubt had come out of Grimsby; and they were a pretty enough spectacle, riding like so many dream ships against the azure sky. No boat, however, lay nearer to us than one mile, and there was little danger of our being observed, even though we rested on the surface of the water, as we continued to do for some time.
Suddenly, and without any warning, Black touched a bell before him, and the Zero sank rapidly and then began to forge ahead, but so deep down that I did not doubt she was wholly submerged. When we had gone on in this way for nearly an hour, the signal to rise was rung upon the bells, and we came up slowly to the surface and there lay with our platform just above the waves and our propellers hardly turning. We were then close to the shore by Sunk Island, and the batteries at the Humberts mouth frowned upon us forbiddingly. I could see the black shape of a small fort which lay, perhaps, the third of a mile away upon our starboard bow, and it was evident that we must run the gauntlet of the guns if we would make it, as Black's intention appeared to be. This did not daunt our Captain one whit. He was in a jester's mood to-night, and I do believe he would have gone on if all the British warships afloat had been anchored in the estuary