sharp, Benson, and your judgment sound. That, then, was what we
struck on--the mast-stump of a water-logged, sunken derelict! If our
underhull plates are sprung, down we go to the bottom!"

They waited, in dreadful anxiety, for the report of Eph from the region
of the keel plates.

They were far out to sea, and a submarine cannot carry a lifeboat!




CHAPTER IV

A SUBMARINE'S REVENGE


All now waited on Eph's word during the next few moments.

If the "Hastings," striking on that stub of a submerged mast, had had
her plates so badly sprang that pumping would not drive out the water
as fast as it came in, then this newest of the submarines was doomed
to go to the bottom.

All that would then remain to those aboard would be to take to the ocean.

True, they had life-preservers aboard, and with these, officers and men
could keep afloat.

In the icy waters of a February night, however, with something like