"Listen, listen, other ships are coming up," Smith was shouting. "I
can hear their propellers. That's the fellow we missed moving off
there on our port quarter. You can hear at least two more here in the
starboard microphone. We seem to have landed plumb in the nest of a
German raiding party," rattled off the electrician glibly as he passed
the receivers to his commander for a verification of his report.

McClure snatched the apparatus and clamped it to his ears. For a
moment he listened to the mechanical whirr of churning propellers,
borne into his senses through the submarine telephone.

"Great!" he exclaimed. "Some more of the Kaiser's vaunted navy trying
to sneak away from their home base for a bit of trickery."

As he rang the engine room to shut off power, the American commander
added, with flashing eyes:

"If we don't bring down one of these prowlers before this night is over
I'll go back home and ship as deckhand on a Jersey City ferry-boat."

Suspended fifty feet below the surface of the sea, the _Dewey_ floated
like a cork in a huge basin while her officers took further observations
on the movements of the German warships above them. Now that their
presence was known the American officers realized they would be
accorded a stiff reception when they next went "up top.".

"I'm going to try it," announced McClure shortly. "We'll take a chance
and pay our respects to one of their tubs."

The _Dewey_ forthwith began to rise. At the direction of the navigating