Part 37 (1/2)

'And if I refuse?' retorted the other.

'I shall sh.e.l.l you until you think better of it,' was the calm reply.

The other bit his lips. 'Very well,' he said sullenly. 'I have no choice.'

'Look out for treachery, sir,' said Ken in a low voice. 'That man means mischief, I believe.'

'He is an ugly looking beggar. But what can he do?'

The words were hardly out of his mouth before the black-browed officer flung up his arm, with a pistol gripped in his fist, and fired straight at Commander Strang's head.

Quick as he was, Ken was quicker. As the man's arm came up, so did Ken's, and seizing Strang by the wrist, he jerked him back.

Before the man could fire a second time, one of the bluejackets had raised his rifle and shot him through the body.

'Thank you, Carrington,' said the commander, glancing at the gray splash of lead on the deck, just where he had been standing the previous moment, 'You were right, and I was wrong.

'Speak to them in their own language,' he continued coolly. 'Tell them I'll blow them out of the water if they try any more tricks of that sort.'

Ken's announcement was followed by dead silence aboard the steamer. Then a second officer appeared at the rail. He had both hands up.

'We surrender,' he said.

''Bout time, too,' growled the big bluejacket.

Strang repeated his former orders, and this time they were obeyed without hesitation. Ken's heart beat thickly as he watched the prisoners hurrying into the boat which had been lowered from her davits to a level with the deck.

'Do you see your father yet?' Strang asked.

'Not yet, sir,' Ken answered, with his eyes fixed on the fast-filling boat.

'Sixteen--seventeen--eighteen,' he counted mechanically. Suddenly a slight cry escaped his lips, and he started forward.

'Father!' he shouted loudly.

An upright man with keen blue eyes, a man of about fifty, but whose hair and moustache were almost white, was in the act of getting to the boat. At Ken's cry, he started violently, stopped short and stared incredulously in the direction of the sound.

'Father!' shouted Ken again.

'You, Ken?' The tone was one of utter amazement.

'It's me all right, dad,' Ken answered in a voice which shook a little in spite of himself.

Before their eyes the other seemed to shake off ten years of age. He sprang into the boat as lightly as a boy. Three more followed, making twenty-two in all. Then the blocks creaked, and the boat was rapidly lowered to the water.

Oars began to ply vigorously, and she shot across the intervening s.p.a.ce, and a minute later was alongside the submarine.

'You must wait there, please, gentlemen,' said Strang courteously. 'I have to deal with the troops at once. Keep well astern.'

Ken was aching to greet his father, but there was plenty for him to do for the moment. He had to translate the commander's orders, which were that all those aboard the steamer should get away at once in the boats. He gave them twenty minutes for the operation.