"Four bells — and a-a-all's well!"
Even as the wind made free with the melancholy echoes of that assurance, the spell upon the ship was exorcised.
Overhead, from the foremast crow's-nest, a voice screamed, hoarsely urgent:
"Torpedo! 'Ware submarine to port!"
Many things happened simultaneously, or in a span of seconds strangely scant. The gunners sprang to station, whipping away the tarpaulin, while their lieutenant focussed binoculars upon the confused distances of the night. Obedient to his instructions, the long, gleaming tube of steel pivoted smoothly to port.
From the bridge a signal rocket soared, hissing. The whistle loosed stentorian squalls of indignation and distress — one long and four short. Commands were shouted; the engine-room telegraph wrangled madly. The momentum of the Assyrian was checked startlingly; her bows sheered smartly off to port.
A rumour of frightened voices and pounding feet came from the leeward boat-deck, where the main body of the passengers was congregated, hidden from Lanyard by the shoulder of the foreward deck-house. A number of men ran forward, paused by the rail, stared, and scurried back, yelling in alarm. At this the din swelled to uproar.
Scanning closely the surface of the sea, Lanyard himself descried a silvery arrow of spray lancing the swells, making with deadly speed toward the port bow of the Assyrian. But now both screws were churning full speed astern; the vessel lost headway altogether. Then her engines stopped. For a breathless instant she rested inert, like something paralyzed with fright, bows-on to the torpedo, the telegraph ringing frantically. Then the starboard screw began to turn full ahead, the port remaining idle. The bows swung off still more sharply to port. The torpedo shot in under them, vanished for a breathless moment, reappeared a boat's-length to starboard, plunged harmlessly on its unhindered way down the side of the vessel, and disappeared astern.
Amidships terrified passengers milled like sheep, hampering the work of the boat-crews at the davits. Ship's officers raged among them, endeavouring to restore order. Half a mile or so dead ahead a tiny tongue of flame spat viciously in the murk. A projectile shrieked overhead, and dropped into the sea astern. Another followed and fell short.
The U-boat was shelling the Assyrian.
The forward gun barked violent expostulation, if without visible effect; the submarine lobbing two more shells at the steamship with an indifference to its own peril astonishing in one of its craven breed, trained to strike and run before counterstroke may be delivered. Its extraordinary temerity, indeed, argued ignorance of the convoying destroyers.
Coincident with the second shot, however, these unleashed searchlights slashed the dark through and through with their great, white, fanlike blades, till first one then the other picked up and steadied relentlessly upon a toy-boat shape that swam the swells about midway between the Assyrian and the destroyer off the port bows.
Simultaneously the quickfirers of the latter went into action, jetting orange flame. In the searchlights' glare, spurts of white water danced all round the submarine. A mutter of gunfire rolled over to the Assyrian, abruptly silenced by an imperative deep voice of heavier metal — which spoke but once.
With the lurid unreality of clap-trap theatrical illusion the U-boat vomited a great, spreading sheet of flame….
Someone at the rail, near Lanyard's shoulder, uttered a hushed cry of horror.
He paid no heed, his interest wholly focussed upon that distant patch of shining water. As his dazzled vision cleared he saw that the submarine had disappeared.
Unconsciously, in French, he commented: "So that is finished!"
Likewise in French, but in a woman's voice of uncommon quality, deep and bell-sweet, came the protest from the passenger at his side: "But, monsieur, what are we doing? We turn away from them — those poor things drowning there!"
That was quite true: under forced draught the Assyrian was heading away on a new course.
"They drown out there in that black water — and we leave them to that!"
Lanyard turned. "The destroyers will take care of them," he said — "if any survived that explosion with strength enough to swim."
He spoke from the surface of his thoughts and with a calm that veiled profound surprise. The woman by his side was neither the American widow nor her English daughter, but wholly a stranger to the ship's company he knew.
The training of the Lone Wolf had been wasted if one swift glance had failed to comprehend every essential detail: that tall, straight, slender figure cloaked in the folds of a garment whose hood framed a face of singular pallor and sweetness in the moonlight, its shadowed eyes wide with emotion, its lips a little parted….
With a shiver she lifted her hands to her eyes as if to darken the visions of her imagination.
"They die out there," she said, in murmurs barely audible…. "We turn our backs on them…. You think that right?"
"We play the game by the rules the enemy himself laid down," Lanyard returned. "They would have sunk us without one qualm of pity — would, in all probability, have shelled our boats had any succeeded in getting off. They have done as much before, and will again. It is out of reason to insist that the captain risk his ship in the hope of picking up one or two drowning assassins."
"Risk his ship? How? They are helpless — "
"As a rule, U-boats hunt in pairs; always, when specially charged to sink one certain vessel. It was so with the Lusitania, with the Arabic as well; I don't doubt it was so in this instance — that we should have heard from a second submarine had not the destroyers opened fire when they did."
The woman stared. "You think that — ?"
"That the Boche had specific instructions to waylay and sink the Assyrian? I begin to think that — yes."
This declaration affected the woman curiously; she shrank away a little, as from a blow, her eyes winced, her pale lips quivered. When she spoke, it was, strangely enough, in English so naturally enunciated that Lanyard could not doubt that this was her mother tongue.
"Then you think it is because…."
Of a sudden she wilted, clinging to the rail and trembling wildly.
Lanyard shot a glance aft. The disorder among the passengers was measurably less, though excitement still ran so high that he felt sure they were as yet unnoticed. On impulse he stepped nearer.
"Pardon, mademoiselle," he said quietly; "you are excusably unstrung. But all danger is past; and there is still time to regain your stateroom unobserved. If you will permit me to escort you…."
He watched her narrowly, but she showed no surprise at this suggestion of intimacy with her affairs. After a brief moment she pulled herself together and dropped a hand upon the arm he offered. In another minute he was helping her over the raised watersill of the door.
Like all the ship the landing and main companionway were dark; but below, on the promenade deck, the second doorway aft on the starboard side stood ajar, affording a glimpse of a dimly lighted stateroom.
With neither hesitation nor surprise — for he was already satisfied in this matter — Lanyard conducted the woman to this door and stopped.
Her hand fell from his arm.