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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Submarine Boys and the Spies, by Victor
+G. Durham
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Submarine Boys and the Spies
+       Dodging the Sharks of the Deep
+
+
+Author: Victor G. Durham
+
+
+
+Release Date: November 13, 2005  [eBook #17057]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SUBMARINE BOYS AND THE SPIES***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jim Ludwig
+
+
+
+Note: This is book four of eight of the Submarine Boys Series.
+
+
+
+
+THE SUBMARINE BOYS AND THE SPIES
+
+Dodging the Sharks of the Deep
+
+by
+
+VICTOR G. DURHAM
+
+1910
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTERS
+    I. "Guess Day" at Spruce Beach
+   II. Trouble in the Making Stage
+  III. On the Edge of the Spider's Web
+   IV. Kamanako Appears on the Scene
+    V. Eph Learns Something New
+   VI. The Little Russian has His Way
+  VII. A Pointer Jolts the Submarine Captain
+ VIII. Even Up for Mr. Kamanako
+   IX. "Dog, Who is Your Master?"
+    X. M. Lemaire Proves His Training
+   XI. Jack's Friends Do Some Fast Guessing
+  XII. In the Power of the Spies
+ XIII. The Fellow Who Showed the White Flag
+  XIV. A Remembrance From Shore
+   XV. Captain Jack Becomes Suspicious
+  XVI. The Government Takes a Hand
+ XVII. Drummond's Little Surprise--For Himself
+XVIII. "Remember What Happened to the 'Maine'!"
+  XIX. A Joke on the Secret Service!
+   XX. A Bright Look and a Deadly Warning
+  XXI. A French Rat in the Corner
+ XXII. Gallant Even to the Foe
+XXIII. "Good-Bye, My Captain!"
+ XXIV. Conclusion
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+"GUESS DAY" AT SPRUCE BEACH
+
+
+"Has anyone sighted them yet?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What can be the matter?"
+
+"You know, their specialty is going to the bottom.  Possibly they've gone
+there once too often."
+
+"Don't!" shuddered a young woman.  "Try not to be gruesome always,
+George."
+
+The young man laughed as he turned aside.
+
+Everyone and his friend at Spruce Beach was asking similar questions.
+None of the answers were satisfactory, because nobody knew just what
+reply to make.
+
+Everyone in the North who has the money and leisure to get away from
+home during a portion of the winter knows Spruce Beach.  It is one of
+nature's most beautiful spots on the eastern coast of Florida, and man
+has made it one of the most expensive places in the world.
+
+In other words, Spruce Beach is a paradise to look at.  The climate, in
+the winter months, is mild and balmy.  Health grows rapidly at this
+favored spot, and so fashion has seized upon it as her own.  True, there
+are yet a few cottages and boarding houses left where travelers of
+moderate means may find board.
+
+The whole air of Spruce Beach is one of holiday expectancy.  The winter
+visitors go there to enjoy themselves; they expect it and demand it.
+They are gratified.  From the first of December to the middle of March,
+life at Spruce Beach makes you think of a great, jolly, unending picnic.
+The greatest cause for regret is that more people of ordinary means
+cannot go there and reap some of the plentiful harvest of fun and frolic.
+
+The thousands of tourists, hotel guests and cottagers at Spruce Beach
+had been promised that by the middle of December they would have a
+treat the like of which few of them had ever enjoyed before.  The
+Pollard Submarine Boat Company, so named after David Pollard the
+inventor--the company of which Jacob Farnum, the shipbuilder, was
+president--had promised that by that date their newest, fastest and most
+formidable submarine torpedo boat, the "Benson," should arrive at Spruce
+Beach, there to begin a series of demonstrations and trials.
+
+Still more extraordinary, the captain of this marvelous new submarine
+craft of war was known to be a boy of sixteen--Jack Benson, after whom
+the new navy-destroyer had been named.
+
+Newspaper readers were beginning to be familiar with the name of Captain
+Jack Benson.  Though so young he had, after a stern apprenticeship,
+actually succeeded in making himself a world-known expert in the handling
+of submarine torpedo boats.
+
+Those lighter readers of newspapers, who scoffed at the very idea of a
+sixteen-year-old boy handling a costly submarine boat, were sometimes
+reminded that the same thing happens at the United States Naval Academy
+at Annapolis, where the young midshipmen are given instruction and often
+are qualified as young experts along similar lines.
+
+More remarkable still, as faithful readers of newspapers knew, Captain
+Jack Benson had associated with him, on the new torpedo boat, two other
+sixteen-year-old boys, by name Hal Hastings and Eph Somers.  It was also
+rumored, and nearly as often believed, that these three sea-bred young
+Americans knew as much as anyone in the United States on the special
+subject of submarine boat handling.
+
+Be that all as it might, it was known to every man, woman and child at
+Spruce Beach that the "Benson" was due to arrive on this December day
+and the whole picnicking population was out to watch the incoming from
+the sea of the strange craft.
+
+More than that, the United States gunboat, "Waverly," had been for two
+days at anchor in the little, somewhat rockbound harbor just north of
+the beach.  It was to be the pleasant duty of the naval officer
+commanding the "Waverly" to extend official welcome to the "Benson" as
+soon as that craft pointed its cigar-shaped nose into the harbor.
+
+The first boat built by the submarine company had been named, after the
+inventor, the "Pollard."  The second had been named the "Farnum," in
+honor of the enterprising young shipbuilder who had financed this big
+undertaking.  And now Spruce Beach was awaiting the arrival of the
+company's third boat, the "Benson," so-called in recognition of the hard
+and brilliant work done by the young skipper himself.
+
+That this was to be something of a social and gala occasion, even on
+board the gunboat, was evident from the fact that on the naval vessel's
+decks there now promenaded some two score of ladies and their escorts
+from shore, and on the hurricane deck lounged musicians from hotel
+orchestras on shore, these men of music having been combined to form a
+band, in order to make the occasion more joyous.
+
+"Look at that shore, black with people!" cried a woman to one of the
+naval officers on the deck of the "Waverly."
+
+"There must be at least ten thousand people in that crowd," laughed
+Lieutenant Featherstone.  "I wonder whether they're more interested in
+the boat, or its boy officers?"
+
+"Are Captain Benson and his comrades really as clever as some of the
+newspapers have made them out to be?" asked the woman doubtfully.
+
+"Judging by letters I've had from friends who are officers at the Naval
+Academy," replied Lieutenant Featherstone, "the young men must be very
+well versed, indeed, in all the arts of their peculiar profession."
+
+A cheer went up from the principal throng over at the beach.  Smoke had
+been sighted off on the eastern horizon, and this must come from the
+long expected craft.
+
+From boat to boat the news passed, and so it traveled to the deck of
+the "Waverly," where the sailors received it with broad smiles.  The
+leader of the impromptu band raised his baton, rapping for attention.
+But Lieutenant Featherstone, below, caught the leader's eye in time and
+held up his hand for a pause.
+
+"If you play, leader," called the officer, in a low voice that carried,
+nevertheless, "don't imagine that your music is to welcome the 'Benson.'
+Submarine boats don't travel under steam power.  They can't."
+
+So, too, on shore, the understanding was quickly reached that the smoke
+did not indicate the whereabouts of the expected submarine.  Half and
+hour later it was found that the smoke came from the tug of a fruit
+transporting company.
+
+Where, then, was the "Benson?"
+
+It was not in the least like young Captain Jack Benson to be behind time
+when he had an appointment to get anywhere.  Nor did that very youthful
+companion expect to arrive late on this day of days.
+
+Some miles away from Spruce Beach the submarine boat, as shown by her
+submersion gauge, was running along at six miles an hour some fifty-two
+feet under the surface of the ocean.
+
+Young Eph Somers, auburn-haired and ofttimes impulsive, now looked as
+sober as a judge as he sat perched up in the conning tower, beyond which,
+at that depth, he could not see a thing.  However, a shaded incandescent
+light dropped its rays over the surface of the compass by the aid of
+which Eph was steering with mathematical exactness.
+
+Out in the engine room stood Hal Hastings, closely watching every
+movement of even as trusted and capable a man as Williamson, one of the
+machinists from the Farnum shipyards.
+
+At the cabin table sat Captain Jack Benson himself, his head bent low
+as he scanned a chart.  His right hand held a pair of nickeled dividers.
+Near his left lay a scale rule.  A paper pad, half covered with figures,
+also lay within reach.
+
+On the opposite side of the table sat Jacob Farnum, owner of the Farnum
+shipyard and president of the Pollard Submarine Boat Company.  Beside
+Mr. Farnum sat David Pollard, the inventor.
+
+Readers of the preceding volumes in this series are familiar with all
+these people, now decidedly famous in the submarine boat world.  In the
+first volume, "_The Submarine Boys on Duty_," was related how all these
+people came together; how the boys, by sheer force of character "broke
+into" the submarine boating world.  In that volume the building of the
+first of the company's boats, the "Pollard" was described, and all the
+exciting adventures that were connected with the event were fully
+narrated.
+
+Our former readers will also remember all the wonderful adventures and
+the rollicking fun set forth in the second volume, under the title of
+"_The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip_."  In this book, bristling with
+adventures, and made lighter, in spots, by accounts of humorous doings,
+was told how the boys gained fame as submarine experts.  It was their
+fine, loyal work that interested the United States government in buying
+that first boat, the "Pollard."
+
+The third volume in the series, entitled "_The Submarine Boys and the
+Middies_" told how our young friends secured the prize detail at
+Annapolis; where, for a brief time, the three submarine boys served as
+instructors in submarine work to the young midshipmen at the Naval
+Academy.  Nor was this accomplished without serious, and even sensational,
+opposition from the representative of a rival submarine company.  Hence
+the boys went through some rousing adventures.  Incidentally, they
+fell against practical instruction in hazing at the Naval Academy.
+
+Adventures enough had befallen the submarine boys to last any man for a
+lifetime.  Yet, as fate decreed it, Captain Jack Benson and his staunch
+young comrades were now destined to adventures greater and further
+reaching than any of which they could have dreamed.  In advance, this
+winter trip to Spruce Beach promised to be little more than a pleasant
+relaxation for the youngsters.  What it really turned out to be will
+soon be made clear in the pages of this volume.
+
+"It seems a very risky plan that you're trying, Jack," remarked Jacob
+Farnum, at last.
+
+"Don't you want me to do it, sir?" asked the young skipper, looking up
+instantly from his chart.
+
+"Why, er--"
+
+But here David Pollard, the inventor of these boats broke in, eagerly:
+
+"Of course we ought to do it, Farnum.  Jack is wholly right.  If we enter
+the harbor at Spruce Beach in this fashion, and carry through our entire
+plan successfully, what on earth can there be left for opponents of our
+class of boats to say?"
+
+"Not _if_ we succeed, of course," smiled Farnum.  "It's only the pesky
+little 'if' that's bothering me at all.  I don't want any of you to
+think me a coward--"
+
+"We know, very well, you're not, sir," Captain Jack interposed, very
+quietly.
+
+"But if we make any slip in our calculations," continued Jacob Farnum,
+"the first bad thing about it is that we'll smash a fine boat which,
+otherwise, the United States Government is likely to want at a price
+around two hundred thousand dollars.  That, however, is not the greatest
+risk that I have in mind.  On board this craft are five people without
+whom it would be rather hopeless for anyone to go on building the
+Pollard type of boat.  Therefore, besides risking a valuable craft and
+our own rather inconsequential lives, we go further and put the United
+States Navy in danger of having only a couple of our boats.  Now, the
+fact is, we want the Navy to have three or four dozen of our submarine
+craft, for we ourselves believe implicitly in the great worth of the
+Pollard boats."
+
+"That's just the point, sir," cried Captain Jack Benson.
+
+"Eh?  What is?" inquired Mr. Farnum, looking at his young skipper in
+some bewilderment.
+
+"Why, sir," laughed Jack, "the point is that we believe our boats to be
+infinitely ahead of anything owned in any other navy on earth.  We
+believe it possible to do things, with boats like this one, that can be
+accomplished with no other submarine craft in the world.  Now, it's a
+fact that, in all the navies, lest an accident happen to a submarine,
+that craft is obliged to travel about, always, in the company of a steam
+craft of war, which is known as the parent ship.  Yet we've come,
+straight from the shipyard at Dunhaven, many hundreds of miles, without
+any such escort.  We've been running along under our own power, night
+and day, without accident, stop or bother.  Thus we've shown that the
+Pollard boat can do things that no other submarine craft are ever
+trusted to try alone.  And now, all that remains to show is that, at the
+end of a long voyage, we can approach a coast, unseen, even though
+thousands of people are probably looking for us, and that we can get
+into a harbor without being detected; that, in fact, we could do
+anything we might have a mind to do to an enemy's ships that might be
+in that harbor.  But now, sir, you propose that, lest we have accidents,
+it will be best to rise to the surface and enter the harbor at Spruce
+Beach as plainly and stupidly as though the 'Benson' were some mere
+lumber schooner."
+
+"I see the thing just the way Jack Benson does," murmured David Pollard,
+thrusting his hands down deep in his trousers pockets.
+
+"Oh, well, if I'm voted down, I'll give in," laughed Jacob Farnum.  "I
+wonder, though, how Hal and Eph feel about this?"
+
+"I don't have to ask them," nodded Captain Jack, confidently.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"We settled it all, days ago, sir."
+
+"And they both agreed with you?"
+
+"Down to the last jot, Mr. Farnum.  They saw the beauty and the boldness
+of the plan."
+
+Oh, well, go ahead, then, responded Mr. Farnum, rising and standing by
+the cabin table.  "Of course, the picturesque and romantic possibilities
+of the scheme are plain enough to me.  We'll have the people at Spruce
+Beach agape with curiosity, then wild with enthusiasm.  And, really, to
+be sure, we have to arouse the enthusiasm of the American people over
+this whole game.  That's the surest way of forcing Congress to spend
+more money on our boats."
+
+"Where are you going, Jake?" called the inventor, as his partner started
+aft.
+
+"To the stateroom, to get a little nap," replied the shipbuilder.  "We're
+not by any means due at Spruce Beach yet."
+
+"Jake Farnum is surely not a coward," chuckled Mr. Pollard, as the
+stateroom door closed.  "Nor is he over anxious about any detail in our
+little game, or he couldn't go to sleep at this important time.  I know
+I couldn't get a wink of sleep if I turned in now.  I've simply got to
+sit up, wide awake, until I see the finish of your bold stroke, Jack
+Benson."
+
+Captain Jack laughed easily, then glanced at his watch to note the lapse
+of time since he had made his last calculation of their whereabouts.  It
+is one thing to be in the open air, navigating a vessel, but it is quite
+another affair to be fifty-odd feet below the surface, calculating all
+by the distance covered and the course steered.
+
+"Any deviation in the course, Eph?" Captain Jack called up into the
+conning tower.
+
+"Not by as much as a hair's breadth," retorted young Somers, almost
+gruffly, for with him, to depart from a given course, was well nigh
+equal to a capital crime.
+
+Jack touched a button in the side of the table.  Obeying the summons,
+quiet Hal Hastings thrust his head out into the cabin.
+
+"Just the same speed, Hal?" the young captain asked.
+
+"Hasn't changed a single revolution per minute," Hastings answered,
+briefly.
+
+With his watch on the table before him, and employing the scale rule and
+dividers, the young submarine skipper placed a new dot on the chart.
+
+"Something ought to be happening in three quarters of an hour," Benson
+remarked, with a chuckle, to Mr. Pollard.
+
+Less than half an hour later the young submarine skipper climbed up into
+the conning tower beside Eph.
+
+"Same old straight course, eh, lad?" asked Jack quietly.
+
+"You know it," retorted Eph.
+
+"Then we're where we ought to be," responded Jack Benson, bending
+forward.  With his right hand on the speed control he shut off speed.
+
+"Now, just sit where you are, Eph, until I come up again," advised the
+young commander.
+
+"Going to the surface?" demanded Somers, with interest.
+
+"Pretty close," nodded Benson.
+
+Calling Mr. Pollard to his aid, Jack began to operate the machinery that
+admitted compressed air to the water tanks, expelling the water
+gradually from those same tanks.  This was the means by which the
+submarine boat rose to the surface.  All the time that he was doing this,
+Jack Benson kept his keen glance on the submersion gauge.  At last he
+stopped.
+
+"How is it up there, Eph?" he called, pleasantly.
+
+"Why, of course there's a lot of good daylight filtering down through the
+water now," Somers admitted.
+
+Captain Jack went nimbly up the spiral stairway.  Now, he had still
+another piece of apparatus to call into play.  This affair is known to
+naval men as the periscope.
+
+In effect, the periscope is a device which in the main is like a pipe;
+it can be pushed up through the top of the conning tower, through a
+special, water-proof cylinder, until the top of the periscope is a foot,
+or less, above the surface of the water.
+
+The top of this instrument is fitted with lenses and mirrors.  Down
+through the shaft of the periscope are other mirrors, which pass along
+any image reflected on the uppermost mirror of all.  At the bottom of
+the periscope is the last mirror of the series, and, opening in upon
+this, there is an eyepiece fitted with a lens.
+
+As Captain Jack Benson applied his right eye to the eyepiece he was able
+to see anything above the surface of the water that lay in any direction
+that the periscope was pointing.
+
+"Right opposite Spruce Beach, as the chart showed!" chuckled the young
+commander.  Under the magnifying effect of the eyepiece lens Benson
+could see the beach, the flag-bedecked hotels, and the moving masses of
+people on the shore.  Yet, all this time, he was out at sea, more than
+a mile from the beach.  The periscope itself, if seen from a boat an
+eighth of a mile away, would undoubtedly have been taken for a floating
+bottle.
+
+"Let me have a peep," demanded Somers.
+
+Eph looked briefly, then chuckled:
+
+"Must be thousands of people over yonder, wondering what on earth has
+happened to us!"
+
+"Do you make out the gunboat, at anchor to the north of the hotel
+section?" inquired Captain Jack.
+
+"Oh, yes.  Say, they'll have an awakening on that gray craft, won't
+they?"
+
+"If we don't make any slip in our calculations," answered Benson,
+gravely.
+
+"Well, we're not going to make any slip," asserted Eph Somers, stoutly.
+
+"Now, keep quiet, please, old fellow.  I want to do a little calculating
+before we take the last, desperate step."
+
+All this time the conning tower of the submarine was just a bit below
+the surface.  Nothing but the slender shaft and the small head of the
+periscope was above the wash of the lazy waves.
+
+Captain Jack soon had his calculation made.  Then, with a quiet smile,
+he remarked:
+
+"I guess you'd better get below, Eph, for your part.  I'll take the
+wheel, now, and Mr. Pollard will attend to the submerging mechanisms."
+
+Eph laughed joyously as he darted below.  He had a part assigned to him
+that was bound to be enjoyable.
+
+"Mr. Pollard!" called down the young skipper, a few moments later.
+
+"Aye, Captain Jack!"
+
+"Let her down slowly, please, until the gauge shows just fourteen feet.
+That's the greatest depth I dare try for the course we're going to
+follow."
+
+"Aye, Captain Jack.  Fourteen feet it shall be."
+
+For the benefit of some readers who may not understand, it is to be
+stated that the charts of harbors bear markings that show the exact
+depth of water at every point in the harbor at low tide.  Thus, the
+chart of the harbor just north of Spruce Beach had already told the
+young submarine skipper just how far below the surface he could travel
+with safety to his craft.
+
+Further, he knew the draft of the "Waverly" to be eleven feet.  So the
+youthful commander could feel quite certain that he would be in no danger
+of colliding, below the water-line, with Uncle Sam's gunboat.
+
+On the deck of the "Waverly" itself there was the same spirit of
+expectancy that there had been an hour earlier in the afternoon.
+
+Lieutenant Featherstone, executive officer of the gunboat, was not,
+however, impatient.  In fact, he stood at the rail, aft, a pretty girl
+beside him, and both were looking down musingly at the rippling water
+below.
+
+"As I was saying," drawled the lieutenant, "when--"
+
+Just then he stopped, though he did not appear startled.
+
+Straight up out of the watery depths shot a Carroty-topped boy, his wet
+skin glistening in the sun.
+
+"Good gracious!" gasped the girl.  "Where did that boy come from?"
+
+"Say, sir," called up Eph Somers, distinguishing the lieutenant in his
+swift look, "where do you want the submarine boat to anchor?"
+
+"What's that to you, young man?" called down Mr. Featherstone, bluntly.
+
+"Oh, just this much, sir," retorted Eph, treading water, lazily; "I
+belong aboard the 'Benson,' and I've been sent to inquire where you want
+us to find our moorings."
+
+"You from the 'Benson'?" snorted the lieutenant, incredulously.  "Then
+where is your craft!"
+
+"Coming, sir."
+
+"Coming?" jeered the lieutenant "So is Christmas!"
+
+"The 'Benson' will be here first, sir," retorted Eph, splashing, then
+blowing a stream of water from his mouth.  "The 'Benson,' sir, is due
+here in from twenty to thirty seconds!"
+
+"What's that?" demanded the naval officer, sharply.  Then a queer look
+came into his face as a suspicion of the truth flashed into his mind.
+He was about to speak when his feminine companion pointed, crying:
+
+"What can that commotion mean out there?"  There was a little flurry in
+the waters, then a parting as something dull-colored loomed slowly up.
+
+Barely a hundred feet away from the port rail of the gunboat the new
+submarine boat, "Benson," rose into sight.
+
+Eph Somers had left the craft, while still below surface, by means of
+the clever trick worked out by Jack Benson and his comrades, as
+described in "_The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip_."
+
+Almost instantly the manhole cover was thrown open.  Jack Benson, natty
+as a tailor's model, in his newest uniform, stepped out on deck, waving
+his hand to the gunboat.
+
+"You'll have to consider that we got you, won't you, sir?" shouted the
+young submarine captain.
+
+Then, both on shore and on the decks of many craft, a realization of
+what had happened dawned in the minds of thousands of people at about
+the same instant.  A great, combined cheer shot up--a cheer that was
+a vocal cyclone!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+TROUBLE IN THE MAKING STAGE
+
+
+On the hurricane deck of the "Waverly" stood one man, mouth wide open
+and eyes a-stare, who couldn't seem to get the meaning of it all.  That
+man was the leader of the combined band from the winter hotels.
+
+Turning, glancing upward, the lieutenant looked at the leader with a
+glance of cool wonder.
+
+"Play, man!  Why don't you play?  What are you there for?"
+
+Then, all of a sudden, reddening, the band leader rapped his music stand
+with his baton, next gave the signal, and the band crashed forth into
+the exultant strains of:
+
+"See!  The Conquering Hero comes!"
+
+At the third measure the band was all but drowned out by renewed
+cheering, that came more uproariously than ever.
+
+Captain Jack Benson had surely chosen a dramatic manner of making his
+appearance at Spruce Beach.  Ten thousand tongues were set wagging all
+at once.  When there came a lull, a man's voice on a tug not far from
+the gunboat could be heard, asserting loudly:
+
+"Well, that's what submarines are for--to sneak in while you're wiping
+a speck of dust from your eye!"
+
+That remark, coming just as the band ceased its strains, was plainly
+audible, and brought a laugh from everyone aboard the submarine,
+including Eph, who was just climbing, in his bathing suit, up to the
+platform deck.
+
+Lieutenant Commander Kimball, hurrying from his cabin, had joined
+Lieutenant Featherstone at the rail, the pretty girl slipping away to
+join a group of civilians.
+
+"What do you think of us?" called Jacob Farnum, a broad grin of delight
+on his face.
+
+"You'll do," admitted Kimball.
+
+"Do you consider yourself sunk?" demanded David Pollard, laughingly.
+
+"Theoretically, yes," assented Lieutenant Commander Kimball.  "I wonder
+if you could do it as well in war time?"
+
+"Couldn't possibly do anything like it in war time," called back Captain
+Jack Benson.  "For, sir, you fly the Stars and, Stripes!"
+
+That was a happy speech, delivered at just the right second.  It set all
+within hearing to cheering again.  And then the thousands beyond caught
+it up.
+
+"I'll say this much," shouted back Lieutenant Commander Kimball, as soon
+as he could make himself heard: "We'd rather have you with us, Mr.
+Benson, than against us."
+
+"You'll have your wish, sir, as long as I'm alive," Jack answered,
+turning and lifting his hat in simple yet eloquent salute to the Flag
+waving at the gunboat's stern.
+
+All this time Hal Hastings stood by the deck wheel, one hand occasionally
+straying to the engine room signal buttons, as he kept the "Benson" just
+about a hundred feet from the gunboat and nearly abeam.
+
+"Where shall I anchor, sir?" called Captain Jack, presently.
+
+"Better take it about four points off our port bow and at least four
+hundred feet away, Mr. Benson," called back the lieutenant commander.
+
+"Four points off port and four hundred feet it is, sir," answered the
+young submarine skipper, saluting.  Then he gave the order to Hal.
+
+"As soon as you're anchored, I'll send you over a boat to be at your
+disposal this afternoon," called Lieutenant Commander Kimball.
+
+"We'll use the boat, sir, to pay you a visit, if you permit," Jack
+shouted back.
+
+"By all means come aboard.  Then we'll visit you.  We're anxious to
+see the works of such a wonderful little craft."
+
+Within ten minutes a man-o-war's cutter was alongside, rowed by six
+alert-looking young sailors, while a coxswain held the tiller ropes.
+
+Messrs. Farnum and Pollard, Jack and Hal made up the visiting party,
+leaving Eph Somers aboard the submarine, with Williamson to help him
+at need.
+
+Cordial, indeed, was the reception of the submarine folks aboard the
+gunboat.  There was a great amount of handshaking to be done.
+
+In the meantime, Eph Somers was having something in the way of trouble
+back on the platform deck of the "Benson."
+
+Two small boats, manned by harbor boatmen, and each carrying a few
+passengers, had put off from shore, and now ranged alongside.
+
+"How do you do, Captain?" shouted a young man at the bow of one of the
+boats.
+
+"Louder!" begged Eph.
+
+"How do you do, Captain?"
+
+"Louder.  I'm afraid the captain can't hear you yet," grinned the
+carroty-topped submarine boy.  "He's over on the gunboat."
+
+"Then who are you?"
+
+"Who?  Me?" demanded Eph, innocently.  "Oh, I'm only the Secretary
+of the Navy."
+
+"All right, Mr. Secretary," laughed the same young man.  "We are coming
+aboard."
+
+"Aboard of what?" inquired Eph.
+
+"Why, you're submarine boat, of course," came the answer.
+
+"Guess not!" responded Eph, briskly.
+
+"Why, yes; we're newspaper men, and it's business, not fun with us."
+
+The boat containing the speaker lay lightly alongside at this moment.
+In another moment the young man in the bow would have clambered up
+on deck, but Eph called down to him:
+
+"Hold on!  Stay where you are.  My orders are to hit any fellow with a
+boathook who tries to come up here in the captain's absence."
+
+"But we've got to have a look at your boat, don't you see?" insisted
+the newspaper man, though, as Eph carelessly picked up a boathook, the
+would-be caller waited prudently in the bow of his boat.
+
+Young Somers was surely in a state of uncertainty.  He had strict orders
+to allow no one aboard unless he knew them to be United States naval
+officers.  On the other hand, the auburn-haired boy knew how necessary
+it was for the submarine folks to keep on good terms with newspaper
+writers if the American people were to be favorably impressed with the
+claims of the Pollard boat.
+
+"Now, see here," said Eph, balancing the boathook, "I'm sorry to stand
+here making a noise like a crank, but have you any idea at all what
+orders mean on shipboard?  And I'm under the strictest orders not to
+let anyone aboard."
+
+"Get your orders changed, then," proposed another newspaper man,
+cheerfully.
+
+"If you'll wait, I'll see if I can," muttered Eph, hopefully.
+
+"Oh, we'll wait."
+
+Williamson's head had appeared in the manhole way.
+
+"Come out on deck, and don't let anyone on board unless we get orders
+to that effect," murmured Somers, passing the conning tower.  Then,
+through a megaphone, the submarine boy hailed the gunboat, asking if it
+would be possible for him to talk with Jack Benson.  Benson soon
+afterward came forward on the "Waverly."  Eph explained the situation.
+Jack shouted back to allow the visitors on the platform deck, but not
+to let any of them into the conning tower, or below.
+
+So Eph turned to the two boatloads of visitors, explaining:
+
+"Perhaps you men can get that all changed if you come out to-morrow, when
+the captain is here.  But the best I can do to-day is to let you up here
+on the platform deck."
+
+"Oh, well," returned the first newspaper man to get up there beside the
+boy, "you can tell us, as well as anyone, about your trip down the coast
+and the way you slipped in here."
+
+"And also," chimed in another, "you're the young man who came straight
+up through the water when she was beneath the surface?"
+
+Eph admitted that he was.
+
+"That's the thing _I_ want to know about," continued the second newspaper
+man.  "I've heard before about that wonderful trick of leaving a
+submerged submarine, and coming to the surface.  How is the thing done?"
+
+Eph regarded this questioner with wondering patience, before he replied:
+
+"You want to know so little that I'm sorry I'm deaf in my front teeth and
+dumb in my right ear."
+
+"That's on you, Paisley!" chuckled one of the newspaper men.
+
+Then three or four began to ask questions at the same time, which caused
+young Somers to wait, then remarked blandly:
+
+"Now, if you'll all kindly talk at once, I'll give you, in a few words,
+a straight account of the plain features of our trip down here, including
+our run under water.  But, if there's any question I don't answer for
+you, you'll understand, I hope, that it's because I know it would be
+bad manners for me to tell you anything that only officers of the Navy
+have a right to know."
+
+"All right, Commodore," nodded one of the newspaper men, good-humoredly.
+"You're all right.  Go ahead and spin your yarn in your own way."
+
+Thereupon, without telling anything that he had no right to tell, Eph
+managed none the less to give his hearers an entertaining account of
+the "Benson's" long trip down the coast without stop or help.
+
+"And, unless I'm in a big error, gentlemen, ours is the longest trip
+that a submarine boat ever took by itself."
+
+"You're right there, too," nodded one of the newspaper men, who made a
+study of naval affairs and records.  "And the way this craft came in
+this afternoon beat anything, so far as I'm aware, that was ever done
+with a submarine."
+
+"That's Captain Jack Benson's specialty," replied Eph Somers, his eyes
+twinkling.
+
+"What's his specialty!"
+
+"Doing things with a submarine boat that have never been done before.
+Captain Benson is the latest wonder in the submarine line."
+
+"He has a very steady admirer in you, hasn't he?" inquired one of the
+newspaper men, laughingly..
+
+"Yes; and the same is true of anyone else who knows him well," declared
+Eph, warmly.  "Jack Benson is about the best fellow on earth--and one
+of the smartest, too, his comrades think."
+
+Thereupon one of the newspaper correspondents began tactfully to draw
+out young Somers about the history and past performances of the young
+submarine captain.  On this subject Somers talked as freely as they
+could want.
+
+"It was Benson, too, who discovered the trick of leaving a submarine
+boat on the bottom, and coming to the top by himself, wasn't it?"
+slyly asked one of the visitors.
+
+"That was his discovery," nodded Eph, promptly.
+
+"What's the principle of the trick?"
+
+Eph's jaws snapped with a slight noise.  He remained silent, for a few
+moments, before he replied:
+
+"So far, that trick is known only to the Pollard people and a few
+officers of the Navy.  The fewer that know, the better the chance of
+keeping it a secret.  Don't you believe me?"
+
+"That's one way of looking at it, perhaps," nodded a reporter.  "But
+there's another side to that, too, Somers.  The United States now own
+some of your boats, and the money of the people paid for those boats.
+Now, don't you think the people of this country have a right to know
+some of the secrets for which they pay good money, and a lot of it?"
+
+On hearing the question put that way Eph looked tremendously thoughtful
+for a few seconds.
+
+"Why, yes, undoubtedly," admitted the carroty-topped submarine boy.
+"I never thought of it that way before."
+
+"Then--"
+
+"See here," interrupted Eph, "it was the Secretary of the Navy, who
+on behalf of the people, bought our boats."
+
+"Yes--"
+
+"He acted as the agent of the people," Eph continued.
+
+"Well--"
+
+"Therefore," asserted Eph Somers, with a roguish twinkle in his eyes,
+"the Secretary of the Navy is the proper official for you to go to in
+search of that information.  And you may tell the Secretary--"
+
+"Stop making fun of us," interposed a newspaper man.
+
+"You may tell the Secretary," finished Eph, "that I said I had no
+objection to his giving you the information you want."
+
+The newspaper men after gazing briefly at the innocent-looking face of
+the carroty-topped one, began to grin.
+
+"Young Somers is all right," declared one of the visitors.  "He knows
+when to talk, and also when to hold his tongue."
+
+"I never was sized up so straight before," grinned Eph, "since I was
+caught stealing grapes behind the Methodist church."
+
+Before the newspaper men departed in their boats they had obtained some
+amusing and interesting points for a news "story."  Yet not one of them
+had gained any inside information as to the closely guarded secrets of
+the submarine.  Eph, from his very disposition and temperament, made
+undoubtedly the best press agent the Pollard Company could have had.
+Hal Hastings, while wishing to be obliging, probably would have said
+his whole "say" in twenty or thirty words.  Jack Benson would have sung
+the praises of the Pollard boats readily enough.  But it was Eph, alone
+of the three, who could give to such an interview the humor and wit that
+American newspaper readers enjoy.
+
+One "reporter" in the party that was rowed back to the beach was not
+known to his associates.  Wherever several newspaper men are gathered
+at a point on business it is generally easy for a stranger, not connected
+with the press, to push himself into the group.  The stranger, in this
+instance, had given the name of Norton, claiming to be from an Omaha
+paper.
+
+Arrived at the beach, however, "Norton" did not hasten to the telegraph
+office.  Instead, he hurried to the Hotel Clayton, the largest and most
+expensive of the hotels at Spruce Beach.
+
+Entering one of the elevators, Norton stepped off at the third floor.
+He stepped briskly down a corridor, stopping before a door and giving
+an unusual style of knock.
+
+"Come--in," sounded a drawling voice, and Norton entered.
+
+From a seat by a table, in the center of the large room, rose a man
+somewhat past middle age This man was tall, not very stout, with a
+sallow face adorned by a mustache and goatee.  The man's eyes were
+piercing and black.  His hair was also black, save where a slight gray
+was visible at the temples.
+
+As Norton entered, the man, who rose, threw a cigarette into the fire
+place, then reached over, selected another cigarette and lighted it.
+The room was thick with the odor of some foreign tobacco.
+
+"Well, Norton?" challenged this stranger, in a low voice.
+
+"I've been aboard the new submarine, Monsieur Lemaire," replied the
+young man.  "I went with a party of newspaper writers, pretending to be
+one of their calling."
+
+"An excellent idea, Norton.  And you saw the very boyish officers of
+the boat?"
+
+"Only one of them.  The other two were paying a call on board the
+gunboat.  I saw Somers."
+
+"You gathered some idea of how to pump him for the information wanted,
+of course?"
+
+"No; I didn't," retorted Norton, scowling.  "I learned, very soon, that
+Somers is one whom we want to leave out of our count in getting
+information?"
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Well, M. Lemaire, if you meet that young fellow, and try to draw him
+out, you'll understand.  He can talk longer, and tell less, than any
+young fellow I've met.  He seems to guess just what you want to know,
+and then he carefully tells you something else."
+
+"Ah, well, out of three young men, we shall find one who will tell us all
+we need to know," laughed M. Lemaire, gayly.  "So it is only a question
+of learning which of the three to make the first attempt upon."
+
+"If you want a suggestion--" began Norton.
+
+"By all means, my dear fellow."
+
+"Then turn your batteries of inquisitiveness loose upon Jack Benson,
+first of all.  He may be easy game.  As for the third, Hal Hastings, I
+hear that he is a silent fellow, who says little, and generally waits
+five minutes, to think his answer over, before he gives it."
+
+"Benson it shall be, then," nodded M. Lemaire.  "I shall find it easy
+to meet him.  And now, good-bye, Norton, until this evening.  You will
+know what to do then."
+
+After Norton had gone out, closing the door behind him, M. Lemaire
+carefully flecked the ash from his cigarette as he murmured to himself:
+
+"Then it shall be Captain Benson whom we first attack!  Nor do I believe
+I can do better than to enlist the services of Mademoiselle Sara.  Ah,
+yes!  Her eyes are fine--perfect.  One looks into her eyes, and trusts
+her.  Captain Jack Benson, you shall have the pleasure of meeting a most
+charming creature!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ON THE EDGE OF THE SPIDER'S WEB
+
+
+An hour after dinner the orchestra of the Hotel Clayton crashed out into
+the first two-step.
+
+The big ballroom was already two thirds as well filled as it could be
+with comfort.  Potted green palms stood everywhere at the sides.  The
+orchestra in the gallery was nearly concealed behind a fringe of green.
+The air was sweetly odorous with the fragrance of southern blossoms.
+Scores of young women in all varieties of handsome evening dress
+enlivened the appearance of the scene.  Their gems cast glitter and
+enchantment.  There were men enough, too, for partners in the dance,
+the men behind expanses of white shirt-front and clad in the black of
+evening dress.
+
+Just a few of the men, however, lent additional color to the scene.
+These were officers and midshipmen from the "Waverly," who came attired
+in the handsome blue, gold-braided dress uniforms of the service.
+
+Among the guests of the hotel who attended the dance were Jacob Farnum
+and his two young submarine experts; Jack Benson and Hal Hastings.  The
+shipbuilder had come ashore with his young friends, registering at the
+Clayton and taking rooms there.
+
+"It's time for you youngsters to get ashore and have a little gaiety,"
+Farnum had declared.  "If you don't mix with lively people once in a
+while, you'll rust even while you keep the 'Benson's' machinery bright."
+
+Jack and Hal had agreed to this.  Eph, however, had expressed himself
+decidedly as preferring to remain on board the submarine for the time.
+Williamson, too, had elected to remain on board, and so had David
+Pollard, who rarely cared for anything in the social line.
+
+On the floor, even before the music struck up, was M. Lemaire.  He was
+in the usual black evening dress, though on his wide shirt front
+glistened the jeweled decoration of some order conferred upon him by a
+European sovereign.
+
+A handsome and distinguished figure did M. Lemaire present.  He nodded
+affably to many of the ladies in passing, and the interest with which
+his greetings were acknowledged proved that M. Lemaire was in a gathering
+where he could boast many acquaintances.
+
+Almost at the first, M. Lemaire had succeeded in having Captain Jack
+Benson pointed out to him.  The tall, sallow man looked over the
+submarine boys eagerly, though covertly.  He beheld them in handsome
+dress uniforms, very much like those worn by the naval officers, for
+Jacob Farnum had insisted that his young submarine officers, wherever
+they went must be appropriately attired.
+
+In the throng, as M. Lemaire passed, stood one handsomely dressed girl.
+Her face, which was interestingly beautiful, had a slightly foreign look.
+The jewels that she wore must have cost a fortune.  The girl herself was
+a finished product in the arts of good breeding and grace.
+
+As M. Lemaire approached her, this girl recognized him with a smile and
+a half-quizzical look.
+
+"Ah, good evening, Mademoiselle Nadiboff," murmured M. Lemaire, as he
+bent low before the handsome young woman.  "I am charmed."
+
+Then he murmured, in a low tone, swiftly:
+
+"Yonder are, the two boys.  Jack Benson is the one you will interest.
+You, Sara, know the arts of conversation well enough.  Make him your
+slave, until he is willing to tell all that we want to know.  Invite him
+to drive with you in your auto car to-morrow.  But, bah!  You will know
+how to make him talk!"
+
+All this was said swiftly, unheard by anyone else.  Then M. Lemaire,
+having appeared hardly to pause, passed on.
+
+A minute later Mademoiselle Nadiboff was chatting laughingly with
+Lieutenant Featherstone.
+
+"Who are those two young men over there?" questioned the young woman.
+"Are they of the Navy?"
+
+"No, though related to us in interest," replied the lieutenant.  "They
+are the captain and chief engineer of the submarine that arrived this
+afternoon.  Youthful, aren't they?"
+
+"Very," agreed Mademoiselle Sara.  "But I like their faces.  You will
+present me, will you not, Lieutenant?"
+
+"Gladly."
+
+So Jack and Hal found themselves bowing before the handsome young
+foreigner.  Mlle. Sara had the appearance of being, equally interested
+in both of them, though she soon managed, with her social arts, in
+drawing somewhat aside with Jack Benson.
+
+And then the music crashed out.  One of the young woman's feet began to
+tap the floor, her eyes glistening.
+
+"Entrancing music," she murmured.
+
+"If you are not engaged for this dance--" murmured Jack, hesitatingly.
+This beautiful creature seemed so superior to the usual run of the human
+kind that the submarine boy felt he was too presuming.
+
+"You are very kind," replied the young woman, with a swift smile.  "I
+shall enjoy it greatly."
+
+Jack took one of her hands in his, resting his other hand lightly at her
+waist.  A moment later they glided over the polished floor.
+
+"Benson is doing famously," laughed Lieutenant Featherstone,
+half-enviously.  "But before I think of myself, Hastings, I must seek an
+interesting partner for you, also."
+
+"Kind of you," returned Hal, gratefully.  "But I fear I must remain a
+wall-flower, or a human palm to-night.  I don't know how to dance."
+
+"You don't?" murmured Featherstone, in amazement.  "Good heavens! I
+thought even the bootblacks knew how to dance in these modern days!"
+
+Jacob Farnum knew how to dance, but did not care for it this evening.
+He was much in love with his young wife, and, as she was not here, the
+ballroom floor had no attractions for him.  So he and Hal retired to
+seats at the side of the ballroom.
+
+"Jack is dancing with a famously pretty girl--the loveliest of many
+that are here to-night," smiled the shipbuilder.  "I trust he won't have
+his head turned."
+
+"Don't worry, sir," Hal rejoined, briefly.
+
+The second dance, also, Jack Benson enjoyed with Mlle. Nadiboff.  The
+young woman herself arranged that gracefully.  At the end of the second
+dance Jack led his partner to a seat.  Then she sent him for a glass of
+water.
+
+Her cobwebby lace handkerchief fell to the floor.  M. Lemaire, passing
+at that instant, espied it, picked it up, and returned it to her with
+the bow of a polished man of the world.
+
+"Flatter the young fellow!  Make him dance attendance on you to the point
+that he forgets all else," whispered the man.
+
+"Trust me for that," murmured the girl.
+
+"I do." And M. Lemaire was gone, swallowed up in the increasing throng.
+
+As Jack Benson brought the glass of water Mlle. Nadiboff sipped at it
+daintily.  Raising her eyes so that she could read the placard now
+suspended from the balcony rail, she announced:
+
+"The next number is a waltz, Captain Benson.  Truly, I am eager to know
+how you waltz.  It is a sailor's measure."
+
+"Then perhaps you will favor me with a waltz, later in the evening,"
+returned Jack, courteously.  "But if I had the impudence to ask you
+for this waltz, and if you were generous enough to grant it to me, I
+know what would happen."
+
+"What, my friend?"
+
+The word "friend" was gently spoken, but Jack Benson replied bluntly:
+
+"Some of the men here would lynch me, later in the night, Mlle.
+Nadiboff."
+
+The young woman laughed musically, though, as Jack glanced away for an
+instant, a frown flashed briefly over her face.
+
+"You will not disappoint me, I know, Captain," she murmured,
+persuasively.  "Besides, you are too brave to fear lynching for an act
+that grants pleasure."
+
+This was so direct that Jack Benson could not well escape.  Nor, truth
+to tell, did he want to.  He found Mlle. Nadiboff's bright, gentle smile
+most alluring.  So, when the music for the waltz sounded the submarine
+captain led her forth on to the floor.
+
+At the finish, after Jack had led his partner to a seat, Lieutenant
+Featherstone joined them.  One or two others approached, and Benson
+slipped away, though just before he did so the young woman's eyes met
+his with a flash of invitation to seek her again later.
+
+"You've been extremely, attentive, but I, imagine some of the other men
+are combining to thrash you, Jack," smiled Farnum, when Benson returned
+to his friends.
+
+"Mlle. Nadiboff is a very delightful young woman," Jack answered,
+heartily.  "I'm sorry you don't dance, Hal."
+
+"If I were very sorry, I'd learn," rejoined Hastings, simply.
+
+During the waltz and the number that followed Jack remained with his
+friends, looking on.
+
+Then Lieutenant Featherstone, feeling that the Navy must look to the
+enjoyment of these strangers, came over to them.
+
+"How many of you dance?" inquired the lieutenant.
+
+"Two of us," answered Hal.  "I don't."
+
+"Mr. Farnum, I must introduce you to an agreeable partner," urged the
+Navy officer.  "Who shall it be?  I know most of the ladies here."
+
+"Don't think me a bear, Mr. Featherstone, but I don't believe I'll
+dance to-night, though I thank you tremendously," replied the
+shipbuilder.
+
+"Then, Benson, you must uphold the honor of your party," laughed the
+lieutenant, linking his arm in Jack's and drawing him forward.
+
+Captain Benson's next dance was with a California girl; after that he
+led out a jolly young woman from New York.  As he left the latter
+partner, Mlle. Nadiboff, on the arm of a gentleman, passed close enough
+to murmur:
+
+"Captain, you are neglecting me--and I have saved the next, a waltz,
+for you."
+
+Not being engaged for that waltz, Jack could hardly do, otherwise than
+claim it.  Indeed, he greatly enjoyed dancing with this gracious,
+handsome young woman.  Yet, soon after he had taken Mlle. Nadiboff
+to her seat, and another partner appeared to claim her favor, Benson
+slipped away.
+
+"Go after Captain Benson, I beg of you, and bring him back here for
+a moment," requested the young woman of her new partner.  That gentleman
+obeyed, even if with a poor grace.  Jack returned, bowing, while the
+gentleman walked away a few feet.
+
+"Captain, you are a stranger here at Spruce Beach?" murmured Mlle.
+Nadiboff, directing the full gaze of her luminous eyes at Jack's.
+
+"Yes, truly."
+
+"I go motoring at eleven in the morning.  I shall expect you here, at
+that hour, to drive with me."
+
+Jack looked as regretful as he felt.
+
+"I'm very, very sorry, Mademoiselle" he replied.  "But I am here on
+duty, and--"
+
+"Duty?" she interrupted, with a light laugh. "And pray what is duty,
+Captain, but a something with which to flavor our pleasures in life?"
+
+"With me, Mlle. Nadiboff," Jack Benson replied, earnestly, "duty is
+everything, pleasure included."
+
+"I am not accustomed to having my commands disregarded," exclaimed the
+young woman, though in a low tone, while her eyes flashed some of her
+displeasure.
+
+"You are giving me pain, Mademoiselle," Jack responded, gravely.
+"Perhaps, at another time--"
+
+"Enough sir!" the young woman interposed.  "And now I behold my next
+partner glancing this way appealingly.  I shall speak with you the next
+time we meet, Captain."
+
+Jack bowed, withdrawing.  Making his way around the ballroom, he dropped
+into a seat beside Mr. Farnum.
+
+Even before Mlle. Nadiboff's partner could rejoin her, M. Lemaire
+appeared around a palm at Mlle. Nadiboff's back as naturally as though
+he had not been playing the eavesdropper.
+
+"Have a care, Sara," he whispered, mockingly, "or you will fail in
+making a fool of that young fellow!"
+
+Half way through the next dance Jack and his friends remained in their
+seats.  Then Hal, stifling a yawn behind his hand, remarked:
+
+"I've a notion that I shall be asleep in a few minutes.  Late hours,
+except on duty, don't jibe with our line of work."
+
+"They don't," admitted Captain Jack, rising.
+
+"Good, boys!" nodded Mr. Farnum, approvingly, as he also rose.  "The
+more rest you have the keener your wits will be for your work."
+
+So they left the ballroom, observed by but few.
+
+Five minutes later Mlle. Nadiboff sat surrounded by three men, with
+whom she was chatting gayly.  M. Lemaire approached her.  She greeted
+him so pointedly that the other three men soon fell away.
+
+"I can hardly congratulate you, Sara," hissed M. Lemaire, speaking in
+French.
+
+"You think I have not made young Benson attentive enough to my whims?"
+the young woman asked, plaintively.
+
+"Attentive?" sneered M. Lemaire.  "Do you know where he is now?"
+
+"No," admitted Mlle. Nadiboff.
+
+"He has gone away upstairs with his friends, that they may all be
+prepared for an early and full day's work."
+
+"You are jesting with me," protested Mlle. Nadiboff, indignantly.
+
+"Take my arm, then, if you will," requested M. Lemaire.  "We will stroll
+about, and we shall see if your eyes are keen enough to discover your
+young submarine captain."
+
+The young woman defiantly accepted the challenge.  By the time that
+they had strolled around the ballroom scarlet spots glowed in her cheeks.
+In either eye a tear of anger glistened behind the lash.
+
+"Are you satisfied?" murmured M. Lemaire, in a low voice.
+
+"I fear that I shall have to teach the young cub a lesson or two in the
+art of showing devotion to a woman's wishes," Mlle. Nadiboff answered,
+tremulously.
+
+"Shall we walk in the grounds?"
+
+"I beg you to take me out into the air," replied the young woman.
+
+"Yes, it will be better," whispered her companion, cruelly.  "Your face
+is aflame.  You will attract too much attention here, and too much
+curiosity.  The American naval officers have sharp eyes--sometimes!"
+
+Procuring his companion's wrap at the coatroom, and throwing a light
+topcoat about himself, M. Lemaire led the way to a distant settee from
+which they could look out over the star lit waters beyond the beach.
+The man had an especial reason for choosing this seat.  From that place
+they could quickly catch sight of anyone who came near enough to
+overhear.
+
+"Sara," began M. Lemaire, less brutally than his companion had expected
+him to speak, "for once I fear that you are going to fail utterly."
+
+"Then you do, not know me," she replied, with spirit.  "I shall win!
+I shall have Captain Jack Benson carrying my fan and craving my smile.
+And that shall be quickly, too!"
+
+"If you do not succeed, Sara," retorted the man, "then sterner measures
+will have to be tried.  This youthful Benson may even have to lose his
+life in the attempt that must be made, at all hazards, to wrest from him
+a set of drawings of the boat he commands, and a description of all her
+working parts, and all the secrets of managing the boat!"
+
+"If he could hear you, he would be charmed with the outlook," muttered
+the young woman, shrugging her shoulders.
+
+"Sara, do you comprehend the situation altogether?  The Pollard type of
+submarine boat is now the most formidable and dangerous in the
+world--and only the United States Government can buy boats from the
+makers!  Any country in the world that goes to war with the United
+States must be beaten unless that country knows how to provide itself
+with submarine boats equal to those of the Pollard make.  You may be
+sure that, at this moment, Spruce Beach is overrun with spies
+representing every great government in the world.  The first country to
+buy, steal, coax or drag out the Pollard secrets wins!  You know the
+master we serve, Sara, among the governments.  We must be the spies
+who win--even though all the Pollard crew have to be destroyed!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+KAMANAKO APPEARS ON THE SCENE
+
+
+Had Jack Benson or Hal Hastings heard that strange talk, perhaps neither
+of them would have slept as soundly that night.
+
+As it was, both submarine boys slept more soundly and sweetly than any
+other human being in that great hotel, unless, possibly, it were Jacob
+Farnum.
+
+At daylight all three were astir.
+
+Wrapped in bathrobes that concealed their bathing suits the three made
+their way down to the beach.  There, for ten minutes, they enjoyed
+themselves in the surf.
+
+"Seems mighty queer to be bathing in salt water in December, doesn't
+it?" demanded Hal, gleefully, as, with both hands, he launched a column
+of salt water that caught Jack neatly in the face.
+
+"Anyway, I believe it's just what the family medical man ordered,"
+chuckled Mr. Farnum, as he stepped shoreward, then ran briskly up and
+down the beach before he went in again for a final plunge.
+
+Over to the bath house, where an attendant had carried their clothing,
+the three now hastened.  After a brisk rub-down and dressing, these
+three from the "Benson" presented themselves in the hotel dining room,
+where, at this very early hour, they were privileged to breakfast all
+by themselves.
+
+"The way my appetite feels," laughed Jack, enjoyably, "I pity the guests
+who have to follow us at table."
+
+"There won't be any breakfast left.  They can have lunch," declared Hal
+Hastings, gravely.
+
+Hardly had the food been placed before them when Mr. Farnum glanced up,
+to find at his elbow a bowing, smiling little Japanese.
+
+"Honorable sir, may I address you while you eat?" inquired the little
+brown man.
+
+"Why not?" asked Farnum, good-humoredly.  "Take a chair, won't you,
+Mr.--"
+
+"Kamanako is my name, honorable sir," replied the Japanese, with three
+more bows.
+
+"Take a seat, won't you, Mr. Kamanako?"  Mr. Farnum invited him again.
+
+"It is much better, honorable sir, that I stand."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I am servant."
+
+"Not here, surely," replied the shipbuilder.  "All the waiters here
+are negroes."
+
+"Not all in kitchen, honorable sir," responded the Japanese, with an air
+of great deference.  "Some in kitchen are Japanese."
+
+"Are you employed in the kitchen, Mr. Kamanako?" asked the shipbuilder.
+
+"Until to-day, honorable sir."
+
+"Meaning you have left the employ of the hotel?"
+
+"Yes, honorable sir."
+
+"Then you're going away from here?"
+
+"I hope to follow the sea, honorable sir.  I am a sailor.  All my
+ancestors before me were sailors.  We love the salt water."
+
+"There is something, then, that I can do for you, isn't there?" guessed
+the shipbuilder.
+
+"If you will be so good, honorable sir.  I seek to become steward aboard
+your boat."
+
+"Oh," replied M. Farnum, understanding, at last.  "You will have to
+speak to Captain Benson about that."
+
+He indicated Jack by a nod, so the little Japanese turned to Benson
+with another bow.
+
+Now, as it happened, a steward was just what Captain Benson wanted.
+Such duties, formerly, had fallen upon Eph Somers.  But now cooking and
+serving meals did not exactly jibe with Eph's present position aboard
+the "Benson" Eph was really first officer or mate.
+
+"Yes, we want a steward," Jack admitted.  "There's just one drawback,
+though, Kamanako.  We can carry very few people aboard, so that everyone
+who does ship with us has to count.  In other words, our steward must
+also cook the meals in the galley."
+
+"I think that will be all right, honorable Captain," replied the
+Japanese, thoughtfully.  "How many have you on board?"
+
+"Six," answered the young submarine commander.
+
+Kamanako thoughtfully counted that number on his fingers.
+
+"It is not too many," replied the Japanese.  "What do you pay, honorable
+Captain?"
+
+"Forty dollars, and found."
+
+"I will accept, honorable Captain."
+
+"Are you sure that you can cook well enough for hungry sailors?"
+
+"I am satisfied that I can cook for anyone, honorable Captain," rejoined
+the little brown man, rather proudly.
+
+"That sounds well enough," smiled Jack.  "Have you had your breakfast,
+Kamanako?"
+
+"Oh, yes, honorable Captain."
+
+"Then, if you'll wait for us, we'll take you aboard.  We shall be going
+in a half an hour, or sooner."
+
+"Would it not be as well, honorable Captain, if I go out before you?"
+asked Kamanako, respectfully.
+
+"No," smiled, Benson.  "Our first officer, Mr. Somers, does not take
+kindly to strangers who are not introduced."
+
+"Then, if I may suggest--if honorable Captain will write note for
+me--then I might go out sooner."
+
+"If you want to go aboard, Kamanako, we'll take you out when we go,"
+Jack replied.  He was annoyed, though he could not have told why, by
+the little brown man's insistence.
+
+Smiling and bowing again, Kamanako left the dining room.  He was waiting,
+though, when the others came out.  As all three carried dress suit cases
+the Japanese quietly took those belonging to Mr. Farnum and Captain
+Benson.
+
+"Most sorry I have not three hands, honorable officer," Kamanako assured
+Hal Hastings.
+
+There were always plenty of shore boats at Spruce Beach.  Just now, on
+account of the visit of the submarine, there appeared to be more of the
+small craft than usual.  So the submarine party had no difficulty in
+finding transportation at once.  Looking out into the harbor they beheld
+the "Benson," surrounded by more than a score of rowboats containing
+sight-seers.  Eph Somers, backed by Williamson, stood on the platform
+deck, doggedly driving away people who wanted to come on board.  Yet
+Eph kept wholly good-natured about it, for he could quite appreciate the
+curiosity of the sight-seers.
+
+As this last boat from shore made its way, through the concourse of
+boats Jack heard a sudden, joyous hail in a woman's voice.
+
+"Oh, here he is--my gallant young captain."
+
+"Mlle. Nadiboff!" ejaculated Jack, under his breath.
+
+Jacob Farnum turned his head away for an instant, but the young captain
+heard the unmistakable sound of a chuckle from the shipbuilder.
+
+Kamanako turned his mild eyes inquiringly in the direction of the
+handsome young woman, as though he wondered who she might be.
+
+"Good morning, Mademoiselle," was Jack's greeting, as he courteously
+lifted his uniform cap.  Hal and Mr. Farnum also uncovered.  Then the
+boat ran alongside, and all four clambered on the deck.
+
+In another instant.  Mlle. Nadiboff's boat was also alongside.
+
+"You are going to be kind, my Captain, and invite me aboard?" asked the
+young woman.   Eph Somers, who was never intentionally rude to a woman,
+found himself staring with all his eyes, whereat he colored hotly.
+
+"I shall be very glad to invite you as far as I am permitted to invite
+visitors," Benson replied.  Then, turning briefly to Eph, he muttered:
+
+"The Japanese is to be cook and steward.  Take him below, and show
+him the galley and the supplies."
+
+Then Benson turned to reach down his hand to Mlle. Sara Nadiboff, who
+trustingly extended her hand to him.  She slipped.  Jack was obliged
+to throw his left arm lightly around her waist in order to draw her
+in safety to the platform deck.  Mr. Farnum, after seeing her safely
+aboard, vanished inside the conning tower, going below to smile quietly
+to himself.
+
+"As gallant as ever, my Captain!" murmured the handsome young woman
+spy, gazing almost tenderly into Jack's face.  "What a very strange
+craft!  And now, conduct me below, please.  I am much interested in
+seeing how you all live aboard such a little and odd vessel of war."
+
+"I am utterly sorry, Mademoiselle," Jack Benson replied.  "But my orders
+are that no visitors except naval officers, or those brought aboard by
+naval officers, may see the interior of the boat."
+
+"Yet that Japanese has just gone below!" remonstrated Mlle. Nadiboff.
+
+"The Japanese," replied the young captain, "is our cook and steward, and
+belongs below."
+
+A light glowed swiftly in Mlle. Nadiboff's eyes, but disappeared almost
+instantly.
+
+The handsome young woman opened her mouth as though to speak, then
+compressed her lips tightly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+EPH LEARNS SOMETHING NEW
+
+
+"You are not as gallant as you were last night," murmured Mlle. Sara, in
+a low tone.
+
+"Last night I was ashore, on social pleasures bent," replied Jack.
+"To-day, I am on duty, and duty must go ahead of everything else."
+
+"And I am hungry," continued the young woman, pathetically.  "In my
+eagerness to see that boat that you command, my Captain, I came away
+from the shore before going through the ceremony of breakfast.  Do you
+mean to say, Captain Benson, that you cannot conduct me to your cabin,
+there to have that--your Japanese--serve me with at least a sandwich?"
+
+"Mademoiselle," cried Jack, apologetically, "you can't have the faintest
+idea how sorry I am that my instructions are what they are I feel wicked
+as I look at your distress, but it is simply wholly impossible for me to
+ask you below.  I can have food served to you on deck, however."
+
+"What?  Eat here before the eyes of all Spruce Beach?  And have it made
+perfectly plain to every onlooker that I am not welcome here?" cried the
+woman spy, reproachfully.
+
+"Oh, but, indeed, you are welcome here," protested Jack.  "As welcome as
+I am permitted to make anyone.  My orders, you know--I am a slave to
+those orders."
+
+"Yet there is some one aboard," urged Mlle. Nadiboff, in her most
+pleading voice, while there was an almost tearful look in her pretty
+eyes, "some one who can change the orders.  Your Mr. Farnum, I take it.
+Go to him, won't you, and plead with him for me?  Go!"
+
+One of her little, gloved hands rested on his arm, pushing gently.
+
+But Jack Benson, though she made him feel inwardly at odds with himself,
+thought more of his duty than of anything else.
+
+"I am very sorry--awfully sorry, Mlle. Nadiboff.  But won't you
+understand that what you ask is wholly impossible?"
+
+"Good-bye, then!" she said, resentfully, though gently, half turning
+from him.
+
+"You'll shake hands, won't you?" asked Jack, holding out his own right
+hand.
+
+"Perhaps, after I have talked with you on shore--when we meet again,"
+she replied, a bit distantly.  Then she turned to Williamson as her boat
+came in close alongside.  "Your hand, please.  I am afraid I may slip."
+
+Williamson helped that most attractive young woman down over the side,
+lifting his cap after he had seen her safe aboard the rowboat.  As
+the harbor craft veered off, Captain Jack Benson lifted his cap with
+all courtesy.  Mlle. Sara Nadiboff bowed to him rather coldly.
+
+"I suppose," sighed Jack, to himself, as he turned away, "a woman can't
+begin to understand why we must be so secret aboard a submarine craft
+that all the naval men in the world would like to know about.  If she
+only could understand!"
+
+Had Benson been able to guess just how well the handsome young spy did
+understand, and how much she had hoped to learn through appealing to his
+interest in her, he would have been furious at the thought of his own
+great simplicity.
+
+"Your charming partner of last night was rather disappointed," observed
+Hal Hastings.
+
+"Yes; she must feel that I have used her mighty shabbily," Jack
+responded.  "I am afraid she won't forgive me."
+
+"Oh, well, after a few days you'll never see her again," murmured Hal.
+"Just because a girl is pleasant--and pretty--one can't forget all the
+orders that he's working under."
+
+Captain Jack Benson talked to himself in about the same strain, yet he
+couldn't wholly get over the notion that he had been--though
+helplessly--rude to a woman.
+
+"You won't need me on deck any more, will you, sir?" asked Williamson,
+saluting.
+
+"No; I shall be on deck," Jack replied, returning the salute.  "Very
+likely Mr. Hastings will be here with me, for that matter."
+
+Soon after the machinist had gone below Eph Somers returned to the deck.
+
+"I've been posting that Kimono," Eph explained.
+
+"Kamanako," laughed Captain Jack.
+
+"Oh, it's all the same to me," sighed Eph.  "To my untrained ear all
+Japanese names sound alike."
+
+"Whatever you do," warned Jack, "don't, hurt the poor fellow's feelings
+by calling him Kimono."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Well, the Japanese are a proud and sensitive race.
+
+"Suppose they are?"
+
+"Do you know what 'Kimono' means, Eph?"
+
+"Haven't even a guilty suspicion."
+
+"It's the Japanese name for a woman's dress."
+
+"Wow!" muttered Somers.  "I shall surely have to, forget 'Kimono,' then.
+What do you call his truly name?"
+
+"Kamanako," Jack responded, and spelled it.  Eph wrote the name down
+on a slip of paper, saying:
+
+"Thank you, Jack.  I'll try to commit this name to memory.  I don't want
+to hurt the feelings of a sensitive little fellow.  It would be a shame
+to have to punch him if he felt insulted and made a pass at me."
+
+"Punch him, eh?" laughed Jack in genuine enjoyment.  "Eph!  Eph!  Don't
+make any false start like that!"
+
+"What are you talking about?" questioned Somers.
+
+"Don't make the mistake, at any time, Of trying to punch that Japanese."
+
+"Trying to?" gasped Somers.  "Say, if I made a swing at that light
+colored little chocolate drop, do you think I'd make a false pass and
+hit my own nose?"
+
+"You might be lucky if nothing worse happened," grinned Jack.  "Eph,
+did you never hear of the Japanese jiu-jitsu?"
+
+"What's that?" demanded young Somers.  "Slang name for something else
+in the Jap wardrobe?"
+
+"No; it's the Jap way of fighting," Captain Benson explained.  "And you
+want to remember, Eph, that's it's a mighty sudden system, too.  It hits
+like lightning.  When the smoke clears away you see a little Japanese
+bowing over you, and apologizing for having rudely tipped you over."
+
+"And little Cabbage-Jacko could do that?" Eph grinned, incredulously.
+"Say, it's wrong to tell me such funny things when I have a cracked lip."
+
+"All right," sighed Jack.  "But at least you've been warned."
+
+Truth to tell, the young submarine commander wasn't much worried about
+Eph's deliberately provoking any fistic encounter with a fellow much
+smaller than himself.  In the first place, the carroty-haired boy wasn't
+quarrelsome, unless actually driven into a fight.  At all times Somers
+was too manly to take out wrath on anyone merely up to his own shoulder
+height.
+
+Nearly an hour later Jack Benson stepped through into the conning tower;
+then moved down the spiral staircase.
+
+His rubber-soled deck shoes made no noise.  Thus it happened that the
+young submarine commander came upon the new steward most un expectedly,
+and without being seen by the little, brown man.
+
+"Kamanako--you scoundrel!" shouted the young captain, beside himself
+with sudden wrath.
+
+For the Japanese, wholly absorbed in his present task, had deftly
+removed the gauge from the midships submergence apparatus, and was now
+dissecting the gauge itself, eyeing the parts with the knowing look of
+an expert.
+
+At sound of the captain's voice Kamanako wheeled calmly about, holding
+up the gauge.  The smile on the face of the Japanese was childlike and
+bland.
+
+"This very queer thing," he murmured.  "What for you use
+it--thermometer."
+
+"No," retorted Jack Benson, frigidly, eyeing the detected one.  "It's a
+barometer, and it shows which way a meddler blows in!"
+
+"I don't understand," remarked the Japanese, looking perplexed.
+
+"Then I'll help you to understand.  First of all, put that gauge down
+on the table!"
+
+Kamanako did so, then made a little bow.
+
+"Now," continued Jack Benson, "take cap and go up on deck."
+
+"What shall I do there, Captain?" asked Kamanako, politely.
+
+"Well, you'll stand there until I see if you've done anything else on
+board.  If you haven't, you can then take a boat to the shore--and stay
+there."
+
+"What this mean, honorable Captain?" demanded Kamanako, a look of
+offense beginning to creep into his little, brown face.
+
+"Well, if you must have it," returned Benson, coldly, "it means that
+I've found you spying into our mechanisms here.  Now, a spy is a
+creature no one cares to have about--least of all on a warship."
+
+"You call me spy--call me ugly name like that?" cried Kamanako, showing
+his teeth.
+
+"Get your hat and go up on deck.  Do you hear me?" insisted Captain Jack.
+
+"I hear you, but I please myself about when I do it," retorted the
+Japanese, drawing himself up to his full though not very imposing height.
+
+"Then you'll go without waiting for your hat," retorted Benson, his
+patience rapidly oozing now.  He started toward the Japanese, just
+as Eph, hearing the sound of talking, looked in and down the staircase.
+
+"Gunpowder and smoke!" ejaculated the carroty-topped boy.  "It's little
+chocolate drop!"
+
+"Are you going up on deck quietly and in an orderly way?" demanded
+Benson, a resolute glitter in his clear, blue eyes.
+
+"I please myself," retorted Kamanako, defiantly.
+
+At that Jack Benson promptly forgot the warning he had given Eph, and
+sprang at the inquisitive steward.
+
+"You'll go--" began Benson.
+
+He was in error, though.  It was he himself who "went."  As he reached
+out with his right hand to seize Kamanako something happened.  Exactly
+what it was the young submarine captain never quite knew.  But he found
+himself sprawling under the seat at the opposite side of the cabin.
+
+"Hi, yi!  Wow!" exploded Eph, darting down the stairs.  "Save some of
+that for me!"
+
+It was ready and waiting.
+
+The carroty-topped boy crouched low, resting his hands on his knees,
+after the manner of a football player awaiting an assault.
+
+Kamanako slid in close.  Ere Eph could seize him the Japanese let
+himself fall lightly on one side.  One of his feet hooked itself behind
+Eph's advanced left ankle, the other foot pressing against the knee of
+the same leg.  Eph's ankle was yanked forward, his knee pressed back,
+and Somers went toppling as a tree in the forest does.
+
+Kamanako was so quickly on his feet again to suggest that he had fallen
+and risen in the same movement.  There was a quiet, yet dangerous, smile
+on the face of the Japanese.
+
+The door of the engine room opened swiftly though noiselessly.
+Williamson, the machinist, took in the whole scene instantly.  Hardly a
+full step forward he took when his fist landed between the shoulders of
+Kamanako, sending that young Japanese through the air, to land sprawling.
+
+As Kamanako leaped to his feet he found himself blinking at the muzzle
+of a revolver that the machinist held in his right hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE LITTLE RUSSIAN HAS HER WAY
+
+
+"Don't get troublesome," advised the machinist, softly.  "I've never shot
+a Jap, but I've always wanted to."
+
+There was a flicker of a grin in Williamson's face that found a
+reflection in Kamanako's own features.
+
+By this time Jack Benson was on his feet, a bit ruffled though with all
+his wits about him.  At the same time Hal Hastings peered down from the
+top of the staircase.
+
+"You've had all the fun so far, Kamanako," Jack admitted.  "But now
+you've got to get off this boat mighty quick.  Do you choose to go
+without any more fuss?"
+
+"I go when I get ready," retorted the Japanese, sullenly.
+
+"What's the matter, Jack?" asked Hal, slowly.
+
+"I've caught a dirty spy at work overhauling our mechanisms," replied
+the young submarine boat commander.
+
+With something of a snarl Kamanako turned as though to spring at Benson
+again.  The sight of Williamson, immovable as a piece of marble, yet
+holding that revolver suggestively, cooled the Japanese ardor.
+
+"How will it do, Captain," queried Hal, "if I pass the word to the
+gunboat and, have a file of marines come over to take charge of this
+spy?"
+
+"First rate," clicked Benson, and Kamanako looked decidedly uneasy.  He
+had his own reasons why he didn't care to be placed under arrest by
+United States troops.
+
+Eph, striking on his head, had been knocked senseless.  He was too
+strong, however, too full of vitality, to remain knocked out for long.
+Now, he half opened his eyes, as he murmured:
+
+"How beautifully the birds are singing today!  And there's mother,
+letting down the bars so the cows can go to the milking shed!"
+
+Jack laughed, in spite of himself.  Then he turned to the Japanese.
+
+"Kamanako, do you want to go quietly, or remain to see what the Navy
+officers do with you?"
+
+"I go now," replied the Japanese, with a shrug of his shoulders.
+
+Turning, he started up the step, while Hal Hastings, regaining the deck
+before him, hailed one of the harbor boats.
+
+Jack darted to where Eph was trying to sit up, and raised him to one
+of the cabin seats.
+
+"What do you think, now, of jiu-jitsu?" asked the young captain.
+
+"I don't know," confessed Somers, sheepishly.  "I didn't see any of it."
+
+At this moment a stateroom door opened and Jacob Farnum thrust his
+head out.
+
+"Anything happening?" inquired the ship builder.
+
+"No, sir," Jack answered.  "It's all over."
+
+Mr. Farnum came out, to ask further particulars.  Williamson, as soon as
+he had seen the Japanese disappear up aloft, dropped his revolver back
+into his pocket, closing the engine room door.
+
+Eph, however, had his own private idea of vengeance to execute.  Up the
+stairs he went, holding hard to the spiral rail, for he was still a bit
+dizzy.  Kamanako, having dropped into the stern of a shore boat, looked
+unconcerned as he was pulled away.
+
+"Yah!" grunted Eph, shaking his fist.  "You kimono!  Kimono!  Kimono!"
+
+"What does that mean when it's translated?" inquired Hal, looking
+interested.
+
+"That's a Japanese insult," grinned young Somers.
+
+"Do you think Kamanako understands it?" queried Hastings.
+
+"If he doesn't then what good does it do him to be Japanese?" Eph
+demanded.
+
+Jacob Farnum listened with great interest to what his young captain had
+to tell him.  David Pollard, being still asleep, had no notion, as yet,
+of what had happened.
+
+"I reckon," muttered the shipbuilder, "It won't be any use to have any
+Japanese aboard here as steward, or as anything else."
+
+"I shan't hire any more of them," Benson replied.  "I shall always
+suspect a spy, after this, when I see any Japanese aboard any kind of a
+war craft, or serving at any military post."
+
+"I'm sorry I missed seeing Eph do the flying somersault act, though,"
+laughed Mr. Farnum.
+
+"I missed it as much as you did," admitted Jack Benson.  "At the moment
+my face was buried in the carpet."
+
+When the two ascended to the platform deck Captain Jack asked, soberly:
+
+"Well, Eph, what is your present opinion about the ability of a Japanese
+to look after himself?"
+
+"Don't rub it in," muttered Somers, with another sheepish grin.
+
+"Oh, that's all right," retorted Jack.  "I came in for pretty nearly as
+much as you did.  I may meet Kamanako again, however.  If I do, I'll pay
+him back."
+
+"What?" gasped young Somers.  "Jack Benson, I thought you knew enough to
+be sure when you've had plenty!"
+
+"I'll pay that little fellow back, just the same, if I ever get a
+half-way chance," insisted Benson.
+
+"Please yourself," muttered Eph, grimly.  "As for me, I'm not looking
+for any damages.  I've had plenty of 'em already."
+
+Not much later the submarine people were favored by a visit from some
+of the officers of the gunboat.
+
+Plans were discussed for making some displays of the submarine's strong
+points on another day.  When the officers had gone, Mr. Farnum turned to
+the boys to propose:
+
+"You've never seen any of the country around Spruce Beach.  Neither have
+I.  What do you say if we go ashore?  I'll charter an auto, and we can
+have quite a trip before it's luncheon time.  Then we'll come back and
+eat at the hotel."
+
+Right under the shadow of the gunboat, Williamson could be relied upon
+as being sufficient guard.  But David Pollard declined to go ashore, on
+the plea that he had some letters to write, which left a guard of two
+on board.
+
+It was eleven o'clock, just to the minute, as the automobile chartered
+by Mr. Farnum came around the corner of the hotel veranda.  At that same
+instant another and handsomer car came rolling into sight.  The door of
+the ladies' parlor opened, and Mlle. Sara Nadiboff, arrayed with
+unusually pleasing effect, came out.
+
+As she caught sight of Jack she started, then came eagerly over to him,
+holding out her hand.
+
+"Here comes my car," she murmured.  "And I see, my Captain, that you have
+changed your mind.  You will drive with me this morning."
+
+"I'm sorry that I can't," Benson replied, and he meant it.  "But I am
+engaged to go with Mr. Farnum and our party."
+
+"You prefer to avoid me?" cried Mlle. Nadiboff, reproachfully, raising
+her eyes swiftly to his.
+
+"Now, please don't say that," begged Benson.  "I wish you could
+understand, Mademoiselle, how far from the truth it is."
+
+"Say but the word, and Mr. Farnum will pardon you," coaxed the charming
+young Woman.
+
+"I couldn't even think of that," replied Benson.  "It is business to go
+with one's employer."
+
+"Business?" repeated Mlle. Nadiboff, with an accent half of disdain.
+"Surely, you are not sufficiently a petty shop-keeper or serf to think
+always of that word, 'business!'"
+
+"I fear I am," Jack nodded.
+
+"Bah!  Then you will never be a success with the ladies," taunted
+Mlle. Nadiboff, though her eyes were laughing, challenging.
+
+"Of course, I'm only a green country boy," Jack replied, with admirable
+coolness, and without any tone of offence.  "So my highest ambition is
+to be a success in the submarine business."
+
+The young woman had tact enough to perceive that she had not quite
+scored by her contempt for business.  She was about to change subject
+adroitly, when Mr. Farnum called, laughingly:
+
+"Are you coming with us, captain?  Or, have you found pleasanter company
+for a drive?"
+
+Jack's hand started toward his uniform cap.  He was about to excuse
+himself, when the young woman answered for him:
+
+"He was just assuring me, Mr. Farnum, that he would gladly go with me,
+but that you had the right of prior engagement."
+
+"Oh, I'll release, him," volunteered Mr. Farnum, his eyes twinkling.
+
+"Now, my Captain, you can no longer find excuse, unless you truly prefer
+other company to mine."
+
+Though Jack was interested in the vivacious manner of Mlle. Nadiboff, he
+had not yet lost his head under any of her flatteries.  He was secretly
+irritated against Mr. Farnum for letting him off so easily.  So Jack
+swiftly determined upon his own plan of evening matters.
+
+"The way the affair has turned out, Mademoiselle, I shall be delighted
+to go in your cars.  Yet I am going to ask one every great favor."
+
+"A thousand, if you wish!" cried the young woman spy, graciously.
+
+"Will you permit me to invite my chum, Mr. Hastings?"
+
+"Assuredly," she replied, with a very pretty pout, "if you feel that you
+will find my company, alone, too dull."
+
+"It isn't that," Jack replied, with ready gallantry.  "I am anxious to
+have Hastings share my rare good fortune."
+
+Then raising his voice he called:
+
+"Hal, Mlle. Nadiboff desires me to invite you to come, too."
+
+Young Hastings was quick-witted enough to understand that this was all
+but a command from his chum.  So he hastily left Mr. Farnum, stepping
+over to join the other party.  Mlle. Nadiboff's little booted right foot
+tapped the flooring of the veranda impatiently, but that was the only
+sign of displeasure she gave.  Her eyes were as laughing and as
+gracious as ever.  She extended her hand to Hal, who bowed low over it
+in knightly style--a trick he had caught from his observation of naval
+officers.
+
+Then, as though to punish Jack, Mlle. Nadiboff asked:
+
+"You will hand me into the car, Mr. Hastings?"
+
+Hal did so, taking the seat beside her in the tonneau.  Jack Benson,
+suppressing a twinkle that struggled to his eyes, closed the tonneau
+door, then stepped in on the front seat beside the chauffeur.
+
+Despite her own cleverness, the young woman gave a slight gasp of
+astonishment over this swift arrangement.
+
+"Decidedly, my young captain is not wholly, a fool," she told herself.
+"When I seek to snub him, he puts it past my power.  However, it may
+be that this young engineer will be better suited to my purpose. I will
+study him."
+
+"Toot!  toot!" The Farnum auto, getting away first, went past them,
+sounding its whistle while Mr. Farnum and Eph lifted their hats.
+
+"Our gallant friend, the captain, must feel out of conceit with me,"
+laughed Mlle. Nadiboff to Hal.  "He prefers the chauffeur's company to
+mine.  So we must console ourselves."
+
+Though he had not been able to hear any of the conversation, M. Lemaire,
+looking out from behind the lace curtains of a parlor window, had seen
+what had happened.
+
+"Sara is doing better this morning," he muttered to himself.  "Though
+why should she take two of the young men with her?  Ah, I see that she
+has the engineer at her side, while young Benson rides on the front
+seat.  Clever little woman!  She is going to make the young captain
+jealous!  Well enough does she know how to do that!"
+
+Not quite so well pleased was the young woman herself, as the drive
+proceeded.  Though she did all in her power to charm Hal, and though she
+did succeed in interesting him, she could not draw the boy out into much
+conversation.  Hal usually had little to say.  Though he answered Mlle.
+Nadiboff courteously from time to time, he did not utter many words.
+Indeed, he appeared to be thinking of something far remote from the
+present scene.
+
+"Are you bored, Mr. Hastings?  Does the sound of my voice annoy you?"
+asked Mlle. Nadiboff, as the auto flew over the quiet country roads
+inland from Spruce Beach.
+
+"Good gracious, no!" replied Hal.
+
+"Then why do you say so little?"
+
+"Because you say it so much better, Mademoiselle."
+
+"But flattery will never take the place of interested conversation."
+
+"Engineers don't talk much," protested Hal.
+
+"So they think a great deal.  Of what were you thinking?"
+
+"Oh?" murmured Hal.  "Oh, I was thinking of my engine, I guess."
+
+Mlle. Nadiboff bit her lips in secret rage.  If she had felt that she
+was doing poorly with Captain Jack Benson, evidently she was now seated
+beside an absent-minded sphinx.
+
+"What place is that over there?" inquired Hal, coming out of a brown
+study as he felt some reproach in the stiffening attitude of his
+companion.
+
+Hal's eye had been caught by what looked like the ruins of an old castle.
+Such sights are at least rare in the United States.
+
+"That ruin, do you mean?" asked Mlle. Nadiboff.  "Oh, it is a quaint bit
+of a castle, only some three hundred years old, though long past in
+ruins.  I believe it was erected as a stronghold by some wealthy man,
+in the old days when the pirates from Havana now and then swept along
+the coast on their raids.  Would you like to see the place, Mr.
+Hastings?"
+
+"Very much indeed," Hal admitted, "if you have the time."
+
+"The time?" Mlle. Nadiboff's laughter rippled out merrily.  "Why, I have
+all the time in the world, Mr. Hastings.  I live only to enjoy myself."
+
+"That must be rather a dull existence, then," thought Hal, while his
+pretty companion leaned forward to give the order to the chauffeur, who
+turned up a road leading to the ruined castle of the old piratical days.
+
+Jack had heard the conversation, and so knew, without asking, for what
+they were now heading.
+
+As they drew closer they discovered other automobiles near the old
+castle.
+
+"The place has several visitors to-day?" hinted Hal.
+
+"Oh, yes; it is one of the show spots of this section," replied Mlle.
+Nadiboff.  "It does well enough to look about there for a few minutes.
+But a ruin like that suggests death and decay, and I--I love life."
+
+"Still, that castle is now a part of history," suggested Hal, "and
+history, it seems to me, should always be interesting."
+
+"This stupid young engineer!" fumed Mlle. Nadiboff, to herself.  "He
+would drive me wild, if I saw much of him.  I think even my slow little
+captain will prove more romantic."
+
+Though neither of the submarine boys could yet suspect it, they were soon
+to stumble into much more than relics of the past.
+
+They were destined to find themselves exposed to one of the greatest
+surprises of their already eventful lives.
+
+"Here we are," cried Mlle. Nadiboff, as the auto stopped near the north
+end of the castle.  "May you discover something to interest you!"
+
+The submarine boys certainly did!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A POINTER "JOLTS" THE SUBMARINE CAPTAIN
+
+
+There was not much left of the old castle, save the walls, and some badly
+crumbled ruins of inner buildings.
+
+"The Florida climate doesn't seem to agree with castles," suggested Jack.
+"I have, an idea that, in Europe, a castle only three hundred years old
+would last much longer and keep much better."
+
+"In Europe?" repeated Mlle. Nadiboff.  "Oh, yes; much better.  But then,
+perhaps in Europe there would be a feeling of veneration for the old
+that would lead the people to take much better care of their castles.
+It would be so in my country, I know."
+
+"May I ask what is your country, Mademoiselle?" asked Jack, looking up
+and into her face.
+
+"Guess, Mr. Yankee!"
+
+"Why, I would guess that you are a Russian."
+
+"You are worthy of the name of Yankee, then.  Yes; I am a Russian."
+
+Another party of sight-seers passed them at that moment, and one man was
+heard to remark:
+
+"At the south end of the castle is a stairway leading down to an
+underground dungeon.  Legend tells us that some forty Spanish pirates
+were once confined there, for a month, before permission was received
+from the governor to hang the Spaniards."
+
+"Did you hear that?" murmured Jack, interestedly.  "A real, old dungeon,
+with an interesting history."
+
+"Such a history merely afflicts me with a shudder," replied Mlle.
+Nadiboff, shrugging her shoulders.
+
+"By Jove, I believe I'd like to have just a glimpse of that old dungeon,
+Mademoiselle, if I am not tiring you or wasting your time."
+
+"You will have to go alone, then," replied the young woman.  "I will
+wait, my Captain."
+
+"I will remain with Mlle. Nadiboff," volunteered Hal.
+
+So Jack Benson, after raising his cap, stepped off rapidly toward the
+southern end of the old ruin.
+
+With much difficulty he found the entrance to the stairway leading below.
+At the head of the stairs two youngish men were standing.  The face of
+one of them looked familiar.
+
+"How do you do, Captain?" nodded that one.  "You don't recall me, I
+guess.  I saw you, yesterday, only for a moment at the rail of the
+gunboat.  My name is Hennessy, one of the newspaper men who visited
+your wonderful craft yesterday."
+
+"I am glad to meet you again," Jack replied, "and sorry that we couldn't
+show you more."
+
+"This is my friend, Mr. Graham," continued the newspaper man.  "Graham
+is the Washington correspondent for my paper, so of course he has heard
+of your boats before."
+
+"If you had been aboard," smiled Jack, "you might have seen something in
+the way of a little news happening."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"Why, we found a new Japanese steward, whom we had engaged, absorbed in
+his study of some of our mechanisms.  So we had to induce him to quit
+our service and go back to shore again."
+
+"A spy, eh?" smiled Graham.  "There are many of them about.  Wherever
+there is anything connected with our national defense the spies of
+Europe are sure to flock, until they have learned all they want to know.
+And I suspect that they rarely fail,  in the end.  You were fortunate
+to catch your Japanese at his tricks at so early a stage in the game."
+
+"I wish all these spies could be herded together and hanged!" muttered
+Captain Jack, in honest indignation.
+
+"Do you?" asked Graham, looking at the boy, with a queer smile.
+
+"Can you doubt it?" challenged Jack.
+
+Graham was silent for a few moments, puffing at his cigar.  Then,
+speaking very slowly, he went on:
+
+"Captain Benson, I wonder if you would be much offended if I offered you
+some information that might prove of much value to you?"
+
+"What makes you think, sir, I'm such a fool as that?" asked Jack, gazing
+at the Washington correspondent in great astonishment.
+
+"One sometimes has to use a good deal of caution, even in offering
+well-intended information," replied the Washington correspondent,
+"Benson, I've been stationed at the national capital for eight years,
+now.  I meet all kinds of people, and I see a good many others whom I
+don't get to know, and don't want to know, and yet I become familiar
+with their histories."
+
+"I don't doubt that, sir," Jack assented.  "The life of a Washington
+correspondent must be full of interesting things and experiences."
+
+"Washington itself is full of foreign spies," pursued Graham, studying
+the ash on the end of his cigar.  "After a newspaper man has been in
+Washington a while he begins to have people pointed out to him who are
+either known or believed to be in the employ of foreign governments for
+the purpose of getting information that our national authorities would
+much rather conceal."
+
+"That must be true," agreed Benson.  "And I suppose there are some very
+clever men engaged in that peculiar line of business."
+
+"Some of the smartest of them are not men, but women," continued Mr.
+Graham.  "Men, perhaps, direct them, but the women spies, when they are
+young and good-looking, can usually coax a lot of information."
+
+"Oho!  I'd like to get a look, some time, at one of these clever women
+spies," declared Jack, much interested.
+
+"That's just what I'm coming to," pursued the Washington correspondent.
+"I hope you won't be offended, Benson, but I understand you have
+already paid some attention to one of the brightest women in this line."
+
+"Mlle. Nadiboff?" cried Jack, guessing instantly what the other sought
+to convey.
+
+"Yes," nodded Graham.  "Though I believe, when I first saw her, eight
+years ago, she was using some other name than Nadiboff."
+
+"Eight years ago," smiled Jack, "she must have been about thirteen years
+old.  Do they employ, spies at such a tender age?"
+
+"Eight years ago," retorted Graham, "this young woman was, I should say,
+about twenty-one years old.  I am aware that she looks hardly older
+to-day.  When I saw you with her ten minutes ago it was the first hint
+I had that she was in Florida."
+
+"So she's a spy?" muttered Jack Benson, speaking more to himself.  "Then
+I can understand why she seemed so anxious to interest me.  I was not
+wrong about that."
+
+"No," laughed Graham.  "Beyond a doubt the young woman is very anxious
+to please you, and to keep your interest.  You happen to command a type
+of submarine torpedo boat in which all the world is at present much
+interested.  By the way, I wonder if Mlle. Nadiboff, as you call her,
+works under the directions of the same chief?  He was a man--"
+
+Here the Washington correspondent gave a description that caused Jack
+Benson to exclaim:
+
+"Why, that's M. Lemaire, to a dot!"
+
+"I guess there's no doubt about it, then," laughed Mr. Graham.  "You've
+fallen into the hands of a pair of the boldest, wickedest and cleverest
+of foreign spies."
+
+"I thank you heartily for informing me about them," breathed Jack Benson,
+his eyes gleaming as he thought of the pair.  "But there's one thing
+that puzzles me.  Mlle. Nadiboff is a Russian, and M. Lemaire must be a
+Frenchman.  Then which country owns that precious pair?"
+
+"Spies rarely have any country," smiled the washington correspondent.
+"They work for whichever government will pay them best.  Today they will
+sell out their employers of yesterday."
+
+"They're a noble lot, then," grunted Jack, disgustedly.
+
+Mr. Hennessy proposed that they go down to have a look at the dungeon
+underground.  While they were examining that damp, slimy old cell, the
+conversation continued.
+
+"Has either of that pair seen you, Mr. Graham?" asked Jack.
+
+"I don't believe it.  I'm not stopping at the Hotel Clayton."
+
+"Then neither of them will suspect that I've been posted," muttered
+Benson, with a short laugh.
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+"Because I rather think," smiled the young submarine captain, "that I
+may attempt to pay that pair back in their own coin--somehow.  By the
+way, do either of them know you well when they see you?"
+
+"They might remember me as a newspaper writer," replied Graham.  "So
+I'll keep out of the way."
+
+"It won't be necessary for me to keep out of the way," added Hennessy.
+"I don't know either Mlle. Nadiboff or her companion; and, besides,  I'm
+here openly as a reporter interested in the submarine craft."
+
+By this time the three had returned to the upper air.
+
+"I'll vanish, now," proposed Mr. Graham.  "But you, Hennessy, if Captain
+Benson doesn't mind, might as well go along with him.  You may get a
+good look at the Nadiboff woman.  You, too, may think her very young.
+She has a knack of keeping so.  Yet she's at least twenty-eight or
+thirty.  Good-bye, for the present!"
+
+Graham turned, losing himself from their sight amid the ruins.  Hennessy
+walked with Jack back to where Hal and the woman awaited them.
+
+Jack's mind was rapidly revolving plans for teaching some one a lesson
+that would not be forgotten.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+EVEN UP FOR MR. KAMANAKO
+
+
+"This is Mr. Hennessy, one of the newspaper men who visited our boat
+yesterday afternoon," said Jack, on rejoining his companions.  "Mr.
+Hennessy has been returning good for evil.  While I am unable to tell
+him any of the things he wants most to know about our boat, he, on the
+other hand, has been telling me much of interest about these ruins."
+
+"There are a lot of legends about this old wreck of a castle," laughed
+Hennessy.  "Most of them are too silly to consider for a moment.  One
+of the old stories has to do with a secret passage.  Some of the guides
+hereabouts show what they solemnly explain was one of the outlets of
+the secret passage in bygone days.  Do you care to devote five minutes
+to looking at the ridiculous thing?"
+
+Mlle. Nadiboff smilingly accepted the suggestion, so Hal and Jack also
+agreed.  The reporter led the way across a field, pausing at last before
+a fringe of weeds and low bushes.
+
+"Now, just step through this wild hedge," Hennessy proposed, smilingly,
+"and you'll see how little it takes to start a yarn.  Look out, though,
+that you don't fall down."
+
+As they stepped through the fringe cautiously the members of the party
+found themselves peering down the shaft of what appeared to be a very
+ordinary well.  It was circular, in shape, and had been laid, on the
+inside, with a masonry of stones.
+
+"There is water at the bottom, isn't there?" inquired the woman Spy.
+
+"Yes," replied Hennessy.  "It was never anything more than a well.  Yet,
+day before yesterday, one of the local guides brought me here and
+insisted on telling me all about its having been an outlet of a famous
+secret passage from the castle.  I had some fishing tackle in my
+pocket, so I rigged up a line and weight, and let it down.  I satisfied
+myself that there were about four feet of greenish, slimy water at
+the bottom of a well.  I wish you could have seen the guide's face!"
+
+"Here come some visitors, now," nudged Hal.
+
+Two men and four women, led by a guide, approached the place.
+
+"This shaft looks dark and mysterious enough," began the guide, reeling
+off a well learned lesson, "to be as full of historic interest and
+mystery as it really is.  This shaft is what is left of one of the
+outlets of the famous secret passage to and from the castle."
+
+While the new visitors crowded about, asking questions and offering
+remarks, the party that Hennessy was guiding stepped into the background,
+secretly enjoying the guide's buncombe.
+
+"If people would only stop to use their good sense a bit," whispered
+Hennessy, "they'd know, at once, that the shaft is only a long disused
+well."
+
+"Great Scott!" whispered Jack.  "Here come Mr. Farnum and Eph with a
+guide.  Let's see if they will be buncoed."
+
+Guide number two came up, with the shipbuilder and Somers in tow.
+Greetings were exchanged.  Then the last arrived pair stepped forward
+in the guide's wake.  Farnum listened with an amused smile.
+
+"Oh, pshaw!" grunted Eph.  "Is this the best you can show us?  This is
+nothing but an old well, with ten feet of malaria at the bottom.  Show
+us, for a change, something that we can believe."
+
+Hal began to laugh quietly.  Then all hands stepped forward for another
+look down the shaft.  As they stepped outside again Benson happened to
+turn just in time to see a familiar figure coming along a path near by.
+
+It was Kamanako, better dressed than he had been earlier in the morning,
+and carrying a bulging dress suitcase.
+
+"Hullo!" muttered Jack Benson, in a tone loud enough to carry to the
+ears of the newcomer.  "There's that infernal Jap spy--that scoundrelly
+thief of other men's secrets!"
+
+Kamanako halted as abruptly as though he had been challenged by a sentry.
+As he saw the young captain a dark, red flush crept into the cheeks of
+the little, brown man.
+
+"You talk much," sneered the Japanese his anger rising.
+
+"I say what I think about spies and fellows who would steal other men's
+secrets," retorted the young submarine captain.
+
+"You will hold tongue better, if you please," snapped Kamanako.
+
+"I?  Hold my tongue for any scamp like you?" taunted Jack Benson.
+
+The taunt had the effect for which Jack wished.  Kamanako, looking
+furious, dropped his dress suit case and ran angrily forward.
+
+Just in time, as the Japanese bounded through the fringe of weeds,
+Captain Jack dodged adroitly to one side.
+
+So Kamanako plunged past him--and, the next instant, there came a
+smothered yell from the inside of the well shaft.
+
+"Oh, that was a shame!" came indignantly, from one of the women in the
+party of strangers.
+
+But Jack, paying no heed to her, had stepped back to the edge of the
+well shaft.  Dimly, down at the bottom, he could make out Kamanako,
+standing in slimy water that reached nearly up to his arm-pits.
+
+"Is the water fine, eh?" Jack called down, laughingly.
+
+"I show you--some time!" came the answer, in smothered rage.
+
+"You showed me Japanese jiu-jitsu," mocked Benson "so I had to do
+something to return your courtesy.  What I have just shown you is
+called--American strategy!"
+
+By now Kamanako had succeeded in pulling himself part way out of the
+water, using his hands and feet on projecting bits of the old masonry.
+
+"You'll get out, in time, for you're a patient fellow," Jack called
+down, in a tantalizing kind of encouragement.  "Don't forget the name
+that I have just given you--American strategy.  And, the next time a
+fellow tries to make you mad, don't let him do it until you've looked
+the ground over.  American strategy--yes, that's the name."
+
+Laughing, as he straightened up, Jack turned away from the shaft
+
+"And aren't you going to throw him down a rope, or do something to help
+the poor fellow out?" demanded the same indignant woman.
+
+"Not in view of his line of offense, madame," Benson replied, raising
+his cap.
+
+"Offense?  What did he do?"
+
+To the whole party Jack explained how Kamanako, that same morning, had
+been caught spying upon the controlling mechanisms of the submarine boat.
+All the young skipper's hearers were satisfied, then, to leave the
+Japanese there to work his own way out, since no one feels any sorrow
+over the punishment of a spy.
+
+"Gunpowder and doughnuts!  But you did get square," chuckled Eph, as the
+submarine party turned back to the automobiles.
+
+"So that Japanese was a spy, you said?" murmured Mlle. Nadiboff, in a
+low tone, as they walked along.
+
+"Yes, beyond a doubt," Jack assured her.
+
+"It must seem strange to be a spy," murmured the young woman.  "It must
+give one a strange feeling."
+
+"Yes, and a mighty mean feeling," agreed Jack, coolly.
+
+As he spoke he raised his eyes carelessly to her face.  He did not make
+the glance so significant as to betray his real thoughts.
+
+Mlle. Nadiboff did not flinch nor change color under that brief scrutiny.
+Instead, she appeared to be almost lost in thought as she walked along.
+
+Suddenly she clutched at the young captain's arm.
+
+"I wonder if you would do something very great, to please me?" she
+murmured, questioningly.
+
+"I'd certainly like to have you try me," responded Jack Benson, in an
+equally low tone.  He spoke the truth, too, for he believed that this
+charming but dangerous companion was scheming some sudden move in her
+plans as, a spy.  He wanted to find out what that move would be.  Above
+all, if it were possible, he wanted to get knowledge of which foreign
+country she represented.
+
+"Won't you contrive to drive alone with me in my car, when we reach
+it?" she whispered, coaxingly.
+
+"And leave your chauffeur behind, also?" asked Jack, smiling.
+
+"That will not be necessary.  I do not mind him.  But I have much that
+I wish to say to you, my Captain.  As for your friend--pardon me, but he
+is dull, and--"
+
+"Quiet, I think you mean, Mademoiselle," interposed Jack.  "Hal's
+worst enemy, if he had one, would hardly call him dull."
+
+"Anyway, my Captain," murmured the young woman, "he does not interest me,
+and I do want a few words with you."
+
+"This charming young spy," muttered Benson quickly, to himself, "is
+beginning to feel that I'm not enough interested to be coaxed away from
+my duty by flatteries.  I take it she means to show her real hand, and
+try to play it in earnest.  If that's the case, I want to know what she
+is going to say."
+
+Aloud he replied:
+
+"It will be easy enough to send my friend away with the others,
+Mademoiselle.  When we reach the automobile all I shall have to do will
+be to look straight at him."
+
+"Ah!  You have a code of signals--you two?"  Mlle. Nadiboff laughed,
+delightedly.
+
+"A code?" repeated Jack.  "No; we have never needed one.  But my chum is
+an unusually bright and quick young man."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+"DOG, WHO IS YOUR MASTER?"
+
+
+Seeing Jack and the young Russian woman so interested in their talk, the
+others had gradually strolled away from them.
+
+Hennessy had already succeeded in securing an invitation to return to
+Spruce Beach in Mr. Farnum's hired auto.
+
+Hal Hastings presently turned, as though to step over to Mlle. Nadiboff's
+car, but he caught a swift look from Jack, and turned back.  Hal had not
+yet heard of the grave suspicion against the young woman, and could not
+guess what this move of his chum's meant.  Hastings, however, was swift
+to take the hint.
+
+"You have not overstated your friend's intelligence," murmured the young
+Russian gleefully.  "At a short look from you he retreats."
+
+"Oh, Hal and I always understand each other," smiled Jack.
+
+"That is very interesting.  And yet I do not like Mr. Hastings as I
+like you," replied the young woman.
+
+She looked at him with a friendly, little flash in her eyes.  Had Jack
+been a few years older, and not warned, he might have been snared by
+this experienced flirt.  As it was, he did not take the trouble to
+answer her last little speech.
+
+Just before they stepped into the car Mlle. Nadiboff uttered a few quick
+words, in some foreign tongue, to her man at the steering wheel.  The
+auto sped away.  Jack noted only, at first, that they were now going
+further from Spruce Beach.  The road down which they drove, however,
+was a beautiful one, and the submarine boy did not much mind where they
+went, provided he could find out how Mlle. Nadiboff meant to make the
+approach against his loyalty to the submarine company.
+
+"Do you know, my Captain, that you are hardly a flattering escort?"
+began Mlle. Nadiboff, after they had whirled along for a mile or more.
+
+"Why not?" Jack inquired, bluntly.
+
+"Have you noticed how I seem to please most men?"
+
+"I saw that several were very anxious dance with you last evening, and
+that, whenever you were seated, men flocked about your chair."
+
+"Why do you suppose they did that?" challenged Mlle. Nadiboff.
+
+"Because you are a very handsome woman, and the men admired you," Benson
+answered, plainly.
+
+"Ah!  Then you think I am handsome?"
+
+"I haven't a doubt of it," Jack answered.
+
+"Do you admire me?"
+
+The challenge came plain and direct.  Mlle. Nadiboff now gazed
+searchingly into the submarine boy's eyes.
+
+"I--I think you a very handsome woman to look at," Captain Jack
+admitted, readily.
+
+"Is that all you have to say?"
+
+"I--I am afraid I do not understand you, Mademoiselle."
+
+"You have no desire to be especially gallant to me?  It would cause you
+no jealousy if you, saw that I preferred the company of other men?"
+
+Jack Benson returned her glance, almost in, bewilderment for a moment.
+Then he leaned back, trying to stifle the impulse to laugh, but he did
+not wholly succeed.
+
+"You are amused?" cried the young Russian, half angry.
+
+"Amused--yes, at the idea of my falling in love, if that was what you
+meant to suggest," replied Jack, again speaking very candidly.
+
+"And why should that amuse you, my Captain?"
+
+"Why, do you know how old I am, Mlle. Nadiboff?  Or rather, how young?
+I am only sixteen.  At my age, if I formed any notion of being in love,
+it would be sensible to have me spanked and put on a short diet for a
+few days."
+
+He laughed merrily, now, and Mlle. Nadiboff turned away her head to
+conceal the tears of vexation that started to her eyes.
+
+"Bah!" she thought to herself.  "I have been wasting time--at Lemaire's
+orders.  The only way to induce this boy to betray his trust will be
+by offering him presents of marbles, tops, kites--bah!  _Bah!_"
+
+Mlle. Nadiboff settled back in her seat, looking straight ahead, her
+attitude as frigid as could be.  For some moments she did not attempt
+to speak.  When she did open her lips she said, icily:
+
+"I find that I have been wasting my time."
+
+"Wasting your time, Mademoiselle?" echoed Jack Benson, coolly, for he
+was much more fully alive to the situation, thanks to Mr Graham, than
+she had any chance to know.  "May I ask what you have been trying to
+do?"
+
+The question made the young woman bite her lip.  Mlle. Nadiboff had been
+a spy quite as long as Mr. Graham had stated.  As she looked back over
+the years she was able to recall man after man whom she had flattered
+and lured by the witchery of her eyes.  Secret after secret she had
+coaxed from men entrusted with guarding such mysteries.  The rewards of
+the work had kept M. Lemaire and herself both bountifully supplied with
+money by the foreign governments that they had served as spies.  Most
+men whom she had tried to win into her service the young Russian woman
+had found easy enough victims.  But now, here was a sixteen-year-old
+boy laughing at her attempts at "cleverness."
+
+"I was wrong to think Jack Benson a fool," she said to herself, angrily.
+"He is far more clever than the men I have met.  I can do nothing with
+him.  I must turn him over to Lemaire--to see if that prince of spies,
+as he has often been called, can find the flaw in this submarine boy's
+armor."
+
+With that Mlle. Nadiboff leaned forward, murmuring a few words to the
+chauffeur, who nodded slightly.  Then the young woman leaned back,
+turning a smiling, friendly but no longer coaxing face to Jack Benson.
+
+"If I have amused you," she smiled, "I am glad.  We will say that much
+and forget the rest, eh, Captain Benson."
+
+"I am glad to agree to anything that will please you," responded the boy,
+gravely.
+
+Mlle. Nadiboff shot a covert look at his face, then decided to say
+nothing.  She began to have a suspicion that this sixteen-year-old boy
+was far more clever than she, despite all her years of strange
+experiences.
+
+A mile further along the automobile branched off the main road, running
+down a shaded lane at much reduced speed.
+
+"What is this--some short cut back to the beach?" asked Jack, trying
+to conceal his astonishment.
+
+"Yes," replied the young Russian, falsely.
+
+Soon the big car stopped.  The chauffeur thrust a whistle between his
+lips, blowing a trilling blast.
+
+Jack Benson changed color somewhat.  This sounded suspicious--a signal
+in the woods.  It was doubly suspicious after the hints that Mr. Graham
+had given the young submarine captain.
+
+"Do not jump--do not be afraid," laughed Mlle. Nadiboff, rather
+maliciously.  "Nothing in the way of danger threatens."
+
+Almost immediately the chug-chug of another auto was heard, just ahead
+up the narrow road.  Then into sight glided a small runabout, which sat
+M. Lemaire, all by himself.  That Frenchman stopped his car, next waving
+one hand gayly to those in the larger car.
+
+Then, lifting his hat most courteously to the young woman, M. Lemaire
+stepped over to the other car.  The Russian woman spoke in some tongue,
+the like of which Benson had never heard before.  It was Arabic, a
+language that both of these spies understood perfectly.  What she
+said was:
+
+"The boy is yours.  Do what you can with him.  I admit that I have
+failed.  I have no hope of being able to do anything with him."
+
+M. Lemaire's eyebrows contracted briefly, in a slight frown.  Then,
+forcing a pleasant look to his face, the Frenchman asked, in a tone
+easy enough with courtesy:
+
+"Captain Benson, will you step out and talk with me a few moments? I
+have much to say."
+
+"I can listen," nodded Jack, looking steadily, shrewdly into the eyes
+of this male spy.  "At the same time, sir, this whole proceeding,
+meeting, request and all are so unusual that I think you cannot do
+better than to give me a frank explanation of what this all means."
+
+"Means?" murmured the Frenchman, as though not comprehending.
+
+"Yes," retorted Captain Jack Benson, disdaining to beat about the bush
+for an instant.  "If you pretend that you do not understand me, sir, I
+shall feel obliged to have a poor idea of either your honesty or your
+intelligence."
+
+"Are you trying to insult me?" asked the Frenchman, a warning flash in
+his eyes.
+
+"Not at all," Jack answered, unhesitatingly.  "I am asking you for a
+direct statement.  Why am I brought here in this fashion?  What is
+wanted of me?"
+
+The young captain was now paying no attention to Mlle. Nadiboff.  She,
+finding herself not needed in the talk, had slipped out at the other
+side of the car, and was now strolling slowly some yards away.
+
+"Won't you step out, Captain Benson, so we an walk and talk this matter
+over?" again insisted the Frenchman.
+
+"Then you have something to say that you don't think quite proper for
+the chauffeur to hear?" demanded Benson, almost mockingly.
+
+"Oh, our good Gaston is all right," laughed the Frenchman, nodding at
+the chauffeur.
+
+"The chauffeur, then, is one of the crowd--all spies," flashed through
+Jack's vengeful mind.  "I might have guessed it.  And this crowd have
+me a long way from my friends."
+
+"You are not afraid to step down to the ground, Captain Benson?" asked
+the male spy, half mockingly.
+
+"Afraid?" flushed Jack, springing down to the ground and confronting
+M. Lemaire.  "No; I am not afraid of a regiment like you!"
+
+"I begin to imagine that you are a brave young man, Captain," assented
+M. Lemaire, rather admiringly.
+
+"Brave?" echoed Benson.  "There's nothing here that calls for bravery,
+is there?"
+
+"No-o-o," smiled the Frenchman slowly.  "Nothing, Captain, but the
+courage to do and dare--and prosper."
+
+"You speak like the puzzle page in a mail order magazine," laughed Jack
+Benson, more easily.  "Now, Monsieur, won't you oblige me by becoming
+more definite?"
+
+"What can I say, then?"
+
+"Why, M. Lemaire, I always like to deal with people who are direct and
+right to the point.  You plainly have some kind of a scheme that you
+are trying to put through with me.  Won't you oblige me by coming
+straight to the very point?"
+
+"I shall be as direct as you can wish, Captain Benson," replied the
+Frenchman, regaining his smile.  "Let us stroll.  Walking often helps
+the flow of language."
+
+Out of the corner of his eye Jack noted that, though Mlle. Nadiboff
+refrained from joining them, she none the less hovered at no great
+distance from them.
+
+"Now, my young friend," began the Frenchman, after a pause of a few
+moments, "you command the submarine boat, and you know all her secrets.
+You are a draughtsman, to, no doubt?"
+
+"A fair draughtsman," nodded Jack.
+
+"You could draw us a model of the boat you command.  You could make
+drawings of all the important parts.  You could supply us with
+explanations."
+
+"Just what sort of explanations?" Jack asked, coolly.
+
+M. Lemaire shot a swift, sidelong glance at the submarine boy.
+
+"How?" demanded the Frenchman.  "You do not understand yet?"
+
+"You promised, Monsieur, to be very exact and explicit.  What do you
+want?"
+
+"Why, then, such drawings and such explanations that any skilled
+shipbuilder, from the plans you furnish us, could build another boat
+just like, and just as effective, as the boat you now command?"
+
+"What do you want to do with such plans?" asked Benson.
+
+"Why, would you care about that, if I pay you well enough?"
+
+"Perhaps not," muttered Jack Benson.  "Still, when I go into anything,
+I like to know all about it."
+
+"Well, then," cried M. Lemaire, gayly, "first of all, we will come to
+the question of a fee to be paid you for your trouble.  Such drawings
+and such papers you could prepare for us in two or three days, could
+you not?"
+
+"I think that very likely," Jack admitted.  He had thrust his hands
+deep down into his trousers pockets, in order to restrain his very
+natural impulse to spring at the Frenchman and rain blows in the latter's
+face.
+
+"Two or three days' work, let us say," continued M. Lemaire.  "And, for
+that we will pay you handsomely--ten thousand dollars in the best
+money of your land!"
+
+They halted, gazing at each other.  For a few seconds Jack Benson did
+not dare trust himself to utter a word.  When he did speak, it was to
+ask, calmly:
+
+"M. Lemaire, who is your master?"
+
+"My master?" repeated the Frenchman.  "I do not understand you."
+
+"Every dog, even a dirty one," thundered Captain Jack Benson, "has a
+master!  Who's yours?"
+
+M. Lemaire's face became livid in an instant.  His hands working
+convulsively, he sprang at the young submarine captain.
+
+Mlle. Nadiboff, snatching a riding whip from under her automobile coat,
+turned and ran toward them.  The chauffeur snatched up a wrench, leaping
+out of the automobile.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+M. LEMAIRE PROVES HIS TRAINING
+
+
+"You insult me!" screamed M. Lemaire, halting right under the face of
+Captain Jack Benson, who looked at him undaunted.
+
+"I didn't," denied Jack.  "I let you do that yourself.  My
+congratulations, sir.  You certainly know how to insult your own
+manhood as well as the most confirmed scoundrel could wish!"
+
+"You insult again!" quivered M. Lemaire, his French accent asserting
+itself.  "I s'all make you pay for zat!"
+
+He struck wildly, badly, as a Frenchman does who has no knowledge of
+boxing.  Benson merely warded off the blow, at the same time brushing
+M. Lemaire back a couple of steps.
+
+"Now, you keep away--Gaston, or whatever your name is!" warned Jack,
+wheeling upon the chauffeur.  "If I lose my temper, some one is going
+to be hurt."
+
+But that defiance served only to draw the chauffeur on.  Raising the
+wrench, he rushed swiftly at the young submarine captain, aiming a blow
+at his head.
+
+Just as might have been expected, Jack Benson wasn't there at that
+instant.
+
+Instead, he dodged nimbly to one side, at the same time driving in a
+blow that landed under one of the chauffeur's ears.  The fellow went
+to the ground.  Swift as a flash Jack bent over him, and snatched up
+the wrench, hurling it off among the trees.
+
+Then Jack wheeled around to face Mlle. Nadiboff, bowing.
+
+"Don't you attempt to do anything, I beg of you, Mademoiselle," Jack
+urged.  "It would come fearfully hard to have to make even the signs
+of striking at a woman."
+
+Though she did not fear physical violence from him, there was something
+in Benson's eyes, at just that moment, which caused the Russian woman
+to retreat three or four steps.
+
+Now Jack drew himself up, for he was becoming master of himself.  He at
+once resolved to play this game, if there was to be more of it, with
+greater coolness.
+
+"I think you see, Monsieur, that I am not be frightened by your childish
+gymnastics," Benson uttered.
+
+M. Lemaire, too, had forced himself to greater coolness.
+
+"Why, Captain Benson, I might even kill, if I found it necessary,"
+replied the Frenchman.
+
+"Then don't get any notion that it's necessary," frowned the young
+submarine captain.  "It would get you into a fearful lot of trouble,
+and could do you no possible good."
+
+"But you called me a 'dog,'" pursued M. Lemaire, plaintively.  "To a
+Frenchman that is the gr-r-r-rand insult!"
+
+"Let it go at that, then," proposed Benson, with a pretense at
+amiability.
+
+"Ah!  Then you will forget what has just happened, if I will?" cried the
+Frenchman, eagerly.  "That is admir-r-r-rable!  Now, then, ten
+thousand dollars I have said you shall be paid for what you will furnish
+me.  Ah, even in this rich country, one can do much with ten dollars!"
+
+"It wouldn't be much, I'm afraid, as compared with my prospects with the
+Pollard Company," replied Captain Jack, with his most thoughtful air.
+
+"Your prospects with the company?" echoed M. Lemaire.  "Why, my bright
+young captain, your prospects with the company will continue just the
+same.  They will never know that you have taken this little fortune
+from me.  Ten thousand dollars!  Think of that!"
+
+"And you'd turn around and sell what I'd, give you for a half a million,
+very likely."
+
+"Oh, no, no, no!" disclaimed the Frenchman, solemnly.  "There would be
+nothing like that in it for me."
+
+"Then no foreign government wants very badly to know about the Pollard
+plans," inquired Jack.
+
+"There is no government that would pay a really great fortune for such
+information,".  M. Lemaire assured the submarine boy.
+
+"There is one," retorted Captain Jack, with a cunning smile.
+
+"Which one?" demanded the Frenchman, doubtingly.
+
+"One that you don't happen to represent," laughed Jack, quietly.
+
+"Ah, I much doubt it, though I beg you to pardon me for saying so,
+Captain Benson."
+
+"Why man alive," grumbled Jack, "are you running away with the notion that
+you're the only one who ever approached me with a view to finding out
+how the Pollard boat runs?  You claim, to be a spy for some other
+government, M. Lemaire.  Are you such an infant as to think yourself
+the only spy in the field?"
+
+"You would have to tell me about the others.  Name them, or describe
+them to me," urged the Frenchman.  "Then I would know, if they are real
+agents of any foreign government."
+
+"I would tell you nothing of the sort," muttered Captain Jack.  "I am
+young, perhaps, yet I'm old enough to keep my own secrets."
+
+"Then it is agreed, anyway," hastened on the Frenchman, "that, in three
+days, you will have ready the plans and descriptions, and that I, after
+I have looked them over and have found them satisfactory, will hand you
+ten thousand dollars."
+
+"If you've made any such agreement," laughed Benson, "then you've made
+it with yourself only.  You certainly haven't made it with me."
+
+"Don't you agree, then?" asked M. Lemaire.
+
+"No," said Jack, shortly, turning on his heel.
+
+"Where are you going, Captain?"
+
+"Back to Spruce Beach."
+
+"On foot?"
+
+"Yes, for I know your kind too well to suppose that you'll offer me a
+ride back."
+
+"Wait!" cried M. Lemaire, persuasively, and Benson, halted, looking at
+him.  "Of course I cannot offer you a lift back to town," continued
+the Frenchman, smilingly, "for that would be ungallant.  But Mlle.
+Nadiboff, who had the pleasure of your company out here will, I know,
+be most delighted at having your company on the return."
+
+"Assuredly," added the young Russian woman, with one of those charming
+smiles that had failed so utterly with the submarine boy.  "I shall
+feel most offended if Captain Benson does penance by walking all the
+miles back to Spruce Beach."
+
+"I'd be a fool, then, to take that long walk back, when I can ride,"
+thought Captain Jack.
+
+So he turned, retracing his steps and bowing to the young woman.
+
+"Yet, before we start," proposed M. Lemaire, anxiously, "let us see,
+Captain, if we cannot yet come to some arrangement."
+
+"Well?" demanded Jack, for boyish curiosity tempted him to find how
+far this Frenchman was willing to go.
+
+"Captain Benson," proposed Lemaire, "let us say that the price for what
+I ask shall be fifteen thousand dollars."
+
+"You're not getting anywhere near my price, M. lemaire," laughed the
+submarine boy, derisively.
+
+"You are playing with me--laughing at me!" cried the Frenchman, yet he
+spoke cheerily, for now he began to hope that this American boy might
+yet be induced to sell himself, body, soul and honor.
+
+"We may as well drop this line of talk," hinted Jack Benson.  "You were
+good enough to offer me a ride back to town, I believe?"
+
+"Yet the price?  Let us settle that first," begged the Frenchman.
+"Captain Benson, I will make you one more offer--but it must be the
+last.  Listen!"
+
+Yet that word was followed by three or four utterly mysterious words,
+uttered in a low voice in Arabic.
+
+"Yes," nodded Mlle. Nadiboff, as Jack glanced from one to the other,
+"but this must be the last offer."
+
+"The last, the only, the highest offer," muttered Gaston, who had
+recovered from the blow Captain Jack had given him.
+
+"Well, then, Captain Benson, bring me your plans within three days, with
+all the other data needed for the construction of one of your submarine
+boats, and I will hand you, in exchange, the sum of twenty thousand
+dollars.  There you are, my good friend!  Twenty thousand dollars.  Now
+you are ours, are you not?"
+
+Disgusted, yet crafty, Jack Benson pretended to hesitate.
+
+"You must give me your answer at once," demanded M. Lemaire.  "I cannot
+be played with any longer."
+
+Captain Jack drew himself stiffly erect, looking the Frenchman full in
+the eyes.
+
+"M. Lemaire, you must have been a spy for a good many years.  You have
+been engaged so long in dishonest transactions that you are unable to
+understand such a thing as common honesty."
+
+"Do you call it honesty," demanded the Frenchman, with a bitter smile,
+"to demand more than twenty thousand dollars for such an easily performed
+service?"
+
+"You idiot!" broke forth Jack, in sudden contempt.  He was no longer
+able even to play with this rascal.  "Your offer is just as good as one
+of a million dollars would be.  I wouldn't take either!"
+
+"What!  You have been trifling with me?" demanded M. Lemaire, starting
+forward.
+
+Now the meaning of those few words in Arabic became plain enough.  For
+Mlle. Nadiboff, who had bent over, her hand toying with the sand,
+suddenly clutched a handful of the fine grains and straightened up,
+hurling the sand full in Benson's face.
+
+In that same flashing instant Gaston darted behind the young American.
+As the half-blinded young captain dodged back, the chauffeur caught him
+around the neck, dragging him to the ground, while Lemaire sprang a-top
+of the boy.
+
+Jack fought desperately enough, but the two men rolled him over,
+struggling to hold his hands.  Then--
+
+Click!  Snap!
+
+Jack Benson's wrists were handcuffed tightly together.
+
+Now M. Lemaire leaped up, looking down gloatingly at the boy.
+
+"Benson, you young fool," scoffed the Frenchman, "since you refuse to
+be treated as a friend, you shall know what it is to have us for your
+enemies.  You deem it easy to laugh at us--to call us names!  Bah!
+You will soon be glad to beg from us!  Your hours of misery are now
+before you--perhaps days of torment that shall end in madness.  Defy
+us?  Balk our plans?  Pouf?  How little you know of the people with
+whom you have now to dealt."
+
+Then, at a sign from Lemaire, Gaston threw himself upon Benson's legs,
+swiftly binding the ankles together.  This done, Lemaire himself added
+a gag to Jack's mouth that shut off the last chance of making a sound.
+
+This done, the two men bore Captain Jack to the larger auto, while
+Mlle. Nadiboff, chuckling softly, covered him completely under robes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+JACK'S FRIENDS DO SOME FAST GUESSING
+
+
+"So that's the kind of people they are?" Jacob Farnum smiled softly as
+Reporter Hennessy finished repeating the information volunteered by Mr.
+Graham, the Washington correspondent.
+
+To this Hal had contributed the little he was able to tell of Mlle.
+Nadiboff's conduct.
+
+"You will have to look to your young captain more closely after this,"
+wound up Hennessy.
+
+"Why?" questioned the shipbuilder.
+
+"Even at this moment he is away in the company of that clever woman."
+
+"Oh, he won't be cross with her," retorted Farnum, with an easy smile.
+"Jack Benson is always courteous with women."
+
+"But aren't you afraid your young captain will have his head turned by
+her?" pressed the reporter.
+
+"Who?  Jack?" laughed Mr. Farnum.  "Say, it's very plain you don't know
+Jack Benson."
+
+The shipbuilder, two of the submarine boys and the reporter were seated
+by themselves at one end of the Hotel Clayton's big front veranda.
+
+"Aren't you at all uneasy?" asked Hennessy.
+
+"If I am," proposed the shipbuilder, "I'm going to cure my mental unrest
+with luncheon.  Won't you join us, Mr. Hennessy?"
+
+If appetite were any guide, none of the submarine people felt the
+slightest uneasiness as to information that the sprightly Mlle. Nadiboff
+might be able to coax from Captain Jack while on that auto drive.
+
+By the time that the quartette came out again, however, Farnum began to
+look bothered.
+
+"After two," he declared, "and Jack not here.  Now, at three o'clock,
+I've agreed to take out a party of naval officers from the gunboat.  We
+want to show those Navy fellows some of our prettiest work in the
+'Benson.'"
+
+"It looks as though your young captain is finding his companion so
+pleasant that he forgets to look frequently at his watch," suggested
+the reporter, slyly.
+
+"Jack Benson doesn't know anything about the three o'clock appointment,"
+replied Mr. Farnum.
+
+"If he isn't here in season," put in quiet Hal, "it won't cause us any
+real trouble, anyway.  Those of us who will be on hand can manage the
+boat through any ordinary trial or trip."
+
+Eph was very silent--for him.  After fifteen more minutes had gone by
+young Somers sauntered out into the road, where he could command a long
+view in the direction in which he would naturally look for Jack's
+approach in Mlle. Nadiboff's car.
+
+After some ten minutes Eph Somers came running up the roadway.
+
+"It's all right," he announced.  "The car is coming."
+
+In hardly a minute more the car rolled up to the veranda, and stopped.
+Mlle. Nadiboff, catching sight of the little party, smiled and nodded
+graciously as she stepped to the veranda.
+
+"Where's Captain Benson?" inquired Hal, starting toward her.
+
+"Captain Benson?" repeated Mlle. Nadiboff, looking a trifle surprised.
+"Hasn't he returned?"
+
+"Not yet," Hal Hastings answered her, his gaze fixed steadily on the
+young woman's face.  "How could he return ahead of your car,
+Mademoiselle?"
+
+"Why, he left me more than half an hour ago, and within two miles of
+here," replied the young woman, easily.  "I proposed going to another
+hotel, a few miles from here, for luncheon.  So he asked me to put
+him down, saying he would walk in.  That was not more than two miles
+from here, was it, Gaston?"
+
+"Much less than two miles," replied the chauffeur.
+
+"And he hasn't returned?" queried Mlle. Nadiboff, looking mildly curious.
+
+"He has not yet come," Hal replied.
+
+"Then he must be a slow walker, or--but will you take my car and go
+back to look for him?  Will take you to the spot where your young
+captain left us on foot?"
+
+Hal Hastings's first impulse was to accept the offer of the car.  Yet
+Mlle. Nadiboff's acting was so perfect, her air so unconcerned save for
+mild curiosity, that any suspicion Hal may have felt for a second or two
+was quickly banished.
+
+"No, though I thank you, Mademoiselle," he replied.  "Captain Benson
+will doubtless be here before we could make a fair start."
+
+Nodding pleasantly, the Russian vanished through the ladies' entrance.
+Hal went back to his companions.
+
+"Say," broke in Eph, presently, "if she left Jack to go several miles
+for her luncheon, she got it and returned mighty quick."
+
+"Probably used a woman's privilege, and changed her mind about driving
+to that other hotel," suggested Mr. Farnum.
+
+For some minutes more the party waited, then went down into the road,
+but there was no sign of Jack coming along.
+
+"Mighty strange!" muttered Hal, uneasily.  "Well, we've got to aboard,
+now," announced Jacob Farnum, after glancing at his watch.  "Sorry
+we can't very well invite you to go with us, Mr. Hennessy."
+
+"I shall see you, if you come ashore in the evening," replied the
+reporter.  "In the meantime I shall be about the hotel.  If I see
+Benson, I'll tell him where you all are."
+
+Being well provided with cigars, Reporter Hennessy did not quit the
+veranda after he had once taken his seat there.  So it happened that
+he noted the arrival of M. Lemaire, alone in a runabout, just about an
+hour after the time when Mlle. Nadiboff had returned.
+
+Jack Benson, however, did not put in an appearance.
+
+The submarine torpedo boat, with its naval party aboard, sailed out of
+the harbor, returning just before dark.
+
+Then, as soon as could be, Messrs. Farnum and Pollard and Hal and Eph
+came ashore, heading straight for the hotel.
+
+"Your young captain hasn't succeeded in walking the two miles' distance
+to this hotel," announced Mr. Hennessy, who was waiting for them.
+
+"Confound it, I don't like the looks of this," muttered Farnum, uneasily.
+"It looks as though something had been done to Benson."
+
+"Will you notify the police?" questioned the reporter.
+
+"I don't believe that would be wise.  At any rate, not quite yet,"
+interposed Hal.
+
+"Then what would you do?" demanded Mr. Farnum, turning upon the young
+engineer.
+
+"If Jack has come to any misadventure through that pair of spies,"
+uttered Hal, anxiously, "it seems to me it will be a heap more promising
+if we keep a sharp, unseen watch over every move made by M. Lemaire
+and Mlle. Nadiboff."
+
+"Right-o, every time!" clicked Eph.  "If anything has happened to good
+old Jack through that pair, then they're the only ones to be watched!"
+
+Dinner, that evening, wasn't as confident a meal for the submarine
+party as luncheon had been.  Both Mlle. Nadiboff and the Frenchman
+were in the dining room, though they did not sit together.
+
+Later, the young Russian woman appeared in the ballroom.  She was as
+eagerly sought as a partner as she had been the night before.
+
+Farnum and his friends did not enter the ballroom, not having brought
+evening dress ashore with them.
+
+Yet, some of the time, they remained near the entrance to the ballroom.
+It was here that M. Lemaire, in evening clothes, saw them and bowed most
+amiably.
+
+"You do not care for the gaiety of the dance?" he inquired.
+
+"No," replied Jacob Farnum, evasively.  "We are looking for Captain
+Benson, and thought it just possible he had entered the ballroom."
+
+"Did he not tell you, this afternoon, whether he would be at the dance?"
+Lemaire inquired, in a tone of polite curiosity only.
+
+"We didn't see him this afternoon," replied Mr. Farnum, rather curtly.
+
+"You astonish me," cried the Frenchman.
+
+"In fact we have not seen Captain Benson since we left him on an
+automobile ride this morning."
+
+"Ah!  I had not heard of that," murmured the Frenchman.  "I trust nothing
+is wrong with the gallant young fellow."
+
+"Oh, that's hardly likely," drawled Jacob Farnum, with an effort.
+"Captain Jack Benson a lad with a pretty good idea of how to take care
+of himself."
+
+While speaking Farnum did not look particularly at the Frenchman, but
+trusted to the boys to watch the man's face covertly.  M. Lemaire,
+however, proved to be a good actor and a master of facial expression.
+
+As soon as he could, without attracting attention, Jacob Farnum drew his
+little force to one side.
+
+"Something serious has happened to Jack," muttered the shipbuilder,
+moodily.  "It may have been an accident, but I believe it's ten times
+more likely that that infernal gang of spies have trapped the lad and
+brought harm to him.  We've got to act, and act fast!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+IN THE POWER OF THE SPIES
+
+
+Something had, indeed, "happened" to Jack Benson, and much more was
+likely to happen.
+
+The young submarine captain lay on a pile of dried grass that had been
+thrown on a board floor.  His hands were still manacled.  Worse, one of
+his feet now had an ankle-ring fastened securely, and this was chained
+to a stout staple driven in the floor.
+
+It was a curious place in which young Benson lay, a place with a strange
+history.
+
+Years before a tunnel had been bored into the side of a hill.  After
+the tunnel had been lined with a masonry of stone it was not more than
+three feet in diameter.  This tunnel led into an artificial cave some
+eighteen feet square and nine feet high.  This cave had been shored up
+and boarded as to ceiling, floor and walls.
+
+A great deal of labor had been expended in building this curious place
+under a low hill.  Yet the original builders had figured that their time
+so spent would yield large returns.  This part of the Florida coast lay
+conveniently near to Cuba.  On moonless nights a small sailing craft
+would put in along the coast, laden with smuggled Havana cigars.  There
+being no safe place along the shore in which to store the cigars, this
+place, hidden well in a forest, had been constructed as a safe
+depository.  For some time the cigar smugglers had prospered.  Then, as
+was to have been expected, Uncle Sam's sharp eyed customs men ran the
+illegal business down, arresting the smugglers, all of whom were
+subsequently imprisoned.
+
+For a while afterwards this cave had been visited by the curious.  All
+this smuggling, however, was now a thing of many years past, and
+curiosity-seekers had come to leave the place alone.
+
+M. Lemaire, however, in studying the surrounding country, had heard of
+the artificial cave.  He visited it.  At need, he saw that it would suit
+his purposes.  And now Jack Benson lay there, having been brought hither
+in Mlle. Nadiboff's automobile.
+
+The young submarine captain was now not gagged.  He had yelled for help
+perhaps two hundred times in the long hours since his enemies had left
+him there.  Yet there had been no response.  Benson was now willing to
+believe that there was now no likelihood whatever of his being able to
+summon help.
+
+Unable to consult his watch, and lying there in complete darkness, the
+submarine boy had lost track of time.  It was now nearly two in the
+morning.  He had not eaten since early the morning before.  He was
+famished, and, what was much worse, was parched for want of a drink
+of water.
+
+"I wonder if they intend to leave me here to die?" thought Jack Benson,
+for perhaps the five-hundredth time.  "It would be fiendish.  Yet
+looking for mercy in Lemaire would be like looking for a lake of pure
+water in the Sahara."
+
+Jack shifted, as much as the chain at ankle would permit.  He groaned
+with the discomfort of it all.
+
+As if in answer there came another groan, low, hollow, yet unmistakable.
+Captain Jack raised himself on one elbow, listening keenly.  The groan
+was repeated.
+
+"Who's there?" he called.
+
+By way of answer there came still another groan.  It was hollow,
+gruesome, and suggested the grave itself.  But Jack Benson was a
+healthy, intelligent boy, with sound digestion and well tuned nerves.
+
+"If you're trying to work any ghostly trick on me," called Benson,
+derisively, "try something else!"
+
+Again the groan, a bit louder, but Jack's answer was a merry, ringing
+laugh, in which there, was not a trace of dread.
+
+"Thank you for the company, Mr. Groan," he called cheerily.  "I was
+beginning to feel a bit lonely.  But say!  Can't you bring a light--even
+a ghostly one?"
+
+"I am the spirit of Paul Jones," breathed a low, wailing voice.
+
+"Oh nonsense!" jeered Jack.  "Paul Jones never spoke with a cheap
+French accent."
+
+"I come to--to warn--you," sounded the same sepulchral accents.
+
+"Bring the warning right in and let's have look at it," begged Jack,
+heartily.  Some convulsive sobs sounded out by the passageway.
+
+"Oh, say," chuckled Jack, "as a vender of blood curdling noises you're
+in need of repairs.  Listen!  I'll sound a much better line for you!"
+
+With that, and in a deep, blood curdling voice, Captain Benson started
+in on the first verse of "Down among the dead men."
+
+He was interrupted then by a more tangible sound.  Beyond, a match was
+scratched.  Then a lantern was thrust in from the low tunnel, followed
+by the appearance of the rather long body of Gaston, the chauffeur.
+
+"I thought my singing would bring something," chuckled Jack.  "In a
+large town it always brings the police.  Well, how are you?  I'm really
+glad to see anything human, and I suppose you'll answer to that
+description, eh?"
+
+In silence the chauffeur stepped forward resting the lighted lantern on
+the floor a few, feet from the boy.  Then the Frenchman seated himself
+on the boards, next bringing out a paper package from one of his
+pockets.  As he untied the string Jack watched with lively interest.
+
+"Sandwiches, eh?" chuckled Jack.  "Thank you.  I'm ready."
+
+"This is my supper," answered Gaston, taking a bite of one of the
+sandwiches.  "You don't get any."
+
+"Oh, I don't?" demanded Captain Jack, feeling the pangs of hunger worse
+than ever.
+
+Gaston's next move was to take a bottle from another pocket, uncorking
+it.
+
+"As you're a Frenchman, I suppose that's wine," muttered Jack.  "I don't
+use that kind of stuff, but water--"
+
+"This is water," replied the Frenchman, pouring a few drops onto the
+floor before the submarine boy's eyes.
+
+Jack's throat ached at sight of the water.  "I suppose you've come here
+to eat and drink, in order to torment me?" asked Captain Benson.
+
+"It must give you huge pleasure to watch me," suggested Gaston, taking a
+swallow from the bottle.
+
+"About the only pleasure I could get from watching you," retorted the
+boy ironically, "would be if I could see you swinging from the end of
+a rope that was tied in a tight noose around your neck!"
+
+"Perhaps that will happen to you--yet," hinted Gaston, looking keenly
+at the boy.
+
+"Humph!" muttered Jack.  "How would that help your rascally crowd?"
+
+It was plain that the chauffeur didn't really want to eat or drink, but
+that he had been tormenting the captive.  Now Gaston carefully placed
+the sandwiches and the bottle of water where young Benson couldn't
+possibly reach them.
+
+"You've been having too pleasant a time here," glared the Frenchman,
+bending over the boy.  "You haven't yet suffered enough to be ready for
+the plans that we have for you."
+
+With that the chauffeur threw himself a-top of the boy, striking him
+a blow in the face.
+
+"You lean, long-legged coward!" sneered Jack, angrily.  "You know about
+how much punk you'd have if I had my hands and legs free, and stood
+before you on even terms.  How you'd beg, you wretched craven!"
+
+For answer the chauffeur clutched with both hands at Jack's hair, giving
+a hard pull.  Jack gritted his teeth, panting, until at last the
+torment forced him to utter a pain-wrung "ouch!"
+
+"Perhaps you will soon learn better than to insult me," leered Gaston.
+
+"You wretched dog," shot back the submarine boy, "you're past insult
+by any decent man!"
+
+"Careful," warned the Frenchman, "or I will soon make you shriek your
+apologies to me.  I can do what I please with you, and sometimes I have
+an ugly temper.  But listen.  I come for one purpose only--to find out
+what answer am to take to my master, M. Lemaire."
+
+"Take him," retorted Jack, dryly, "the assurance of my undying contempt
+for him and all of his kind."
+
+"You will be left here another twenty-four hours, without food or drink,
+if you do not give me a better answer to take," warned Gaston, leering
+down savagely into the boy's face.  "Now, consider!  Will you send word
+that you will be glad to see M. Lemaire in the morning?"
+
+"Yes; if he's going to be in state prison," mocked Benson, "and locked
+in a cell, as he should be."
+
+"Will you see him here?"
+
+"I can't help myself."
+
+"If M. Lemaire comes, will you be sensible?  Will you tell him all that
+he wants to know about your boat and your work?"
+
+"Not if I'm in my right mind!"
+
+"If you continue stubborn, Captain Benson, you will die here, of thirst
+and hunger."
+
+"Perhaps," admitted Jack, more soberly.  "But it will be a full-size
+man's death, won't it?"
+
+"Oh, you think, then, that you are not afraid to die of thirst and
+hunger?"
+
+"Since others have done it," retorted Jack, "I suppose I can, if I
+have to."
+
+"If you have to?" rasped the Frenchman.
+
+"Do you doubt, then, that we would bring such a fate upon you?"
+
+"I don't believe there's anything too low and cowardly for your crowd
+to stoop to it," admitted Jack Benson, with spirit.
+
+"Have a care, young man!"
+
+"You asked me a question," growled back young Benson, "and I answered
+you.  If it doesn't suit you, don't ask any more questions."
+
+Gaston regarded the boy with a still more sinister look.
+
+"I think, Captain," continued the chauffeur, "that a little pain--will
+have a good effect in disciplining you."
+
+Jack Benson did not reply.
+
+"Come, now!  Let us see if any of your hair will stay in your scalp?"
+proposed the Frenchman.  "Yet, first of all, boy, have you anything to
+say that will stop me?"
+
+"If I had, I'd say it," muttered the submarine boy, ruefully.
+
+"Then you might give me that message I asked for."
+
+"Is that all that will stop you?" demanded Jack.
+
+"Yes.  All."
+
+"Then go ahead with whatever you have in mind," retorted Jack.  "As long
+as my sane mind stays by me I shall never betray the Pollard secrets to
+any other government!"
+
+"Let us see, then!"
+
+Once more Gaston fastened the long, sinewy fingers of each hand in the
+submarine boy's hair.  He began to tug, gently at first, but gradually
+increasing the force of the yank.
+
+Jack Benson stood it as long as he could, then at last let out a yell
+that was dragged from the depths of agony.
+
+"I'm in time, it seems!  Stop that!  Now, turn and fight like a man--you
+contemptible hound!"
+
+It was Hal Hastings's voice that rang through the little cave.  Hal had
+just crawled in through the tunnel.  Now, the young engineer, his frame
+shaking with indignation, stood up at nearly his full length, prepared
+to spring upon Gaston, who, also, had leaped to his feet.
+
+"I thought it would be worth while to watch and shadow you to-night,"
+jeered Hal, angrily.  "It turns out I was right.  The bushes planted
+before the mouth of the tunnel bothered me, a while, in finding the way
+in here after you--_but now I'm here!_"
+
+Of a sudden Hal leaped forward, intent upon pouncing on the chauffeur.
+But Hal's foot caught in a break in the flooring.  He pitched and fell
+forward.
+
+With a snarl of glee Gaston burled himself upon the prostrate body of
+the second submarine boy, pounding him furiously.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE FELLOW WHO SHOWED THE WHITE FLAG
+
+
+Hal lay face down, and subjected to all the brutal fury of the
+Frenchman's assault.
+
+For a few seconds young Hastings did all in his power to fight back.
+He was rapidly losing consciousness, however, and poor Jack lay unable
+to lend as much as a finger's weight to the defense of his chum.
+
+Then, with an oath in a foreign tongue, Gaston forced Hal's hands back,
+snapping handcuffs on the engineer's wrists.
+
+"Now, then, you young pest!" snarled Gaston, springing to his feet.
+"Instead of one of you, I have two.  But two shall give me no more
+trouble than one.  So you thought you could subdue me--_me_, did you?"
+
+"I'd have thrashed you all right," muttered Hal, his senses returning
+under the storm of taunts, "if my foot hadn't caught and thrown me.
+You wouldn't dare to free my hands and let me to my feet, just to see
+what would happen to you!  You can't fight--unless all the advantage
+is handed to you.  You're a coward--not a fighter!"
+
+"Careful, my young firebrand, or I'll teach you to be more polite to
+me," sneered the Frenchman.
+
+"Polite to you?" jeered Hal.  "Polite to a spy--to a thief of nations!
+Polite to a scoundrel who wants to steal the biggest secret of defense
+that the United States Navy has!"
+
+"Oh, we'll have your secret all right," announced the Frenchman, his
+voice harsh with triumph.  "We now have the two boys who know all about
+the secrets of the Pollard boats!"
+
+"This sounds so good, I reckon we'd better go right on in, Jerry," broke
+in another voice.
+
+Gaston started, as did the two submarine boys.  Then the chauffeur
+leaped to the mouth of the tunnel, only to draw back in dismay as a
+big form emerged and loomed up before his startled vision.
+
+The last comer wore the dress and insignia of a petty officer of the
+United States Navy.
+
+"Get back there!" warned this big apparition, waving a warning hand that
+looked big enough to be a ham.  "Nobody can't go out until we look into
+this cargo."
+
+After the big sailor a smaller one crawled out of the tunnel, rising
+to his feet.  Though he was smaller, this second sailor was not exactly
+what could have been called a little man.
+
+"Now, then," demanded the big sailor, "whose captain of this craft?"
+
+Gaston, his eyes threatening to bulge from his head, had fallen back
+against the wall opposite.  His mouth was wide open, but he ventured
+no answer.
+
+"Stow my sidelights, Jerry," muttered the big sailor to his mate,
+"but this is a queer looking hold!  And two young men here who'd look
+like officers of the service, if they wasn't so young."
+
+"There never was anybody more delighted to you," broke fervently from
+Jack Benson's.  "You belong to the 'Waverly'?"
+
+"Aye, aye, shipmate."
+
+"Then you know the submarine, of course?"
+
+"Aye, shipmate."
+
+"I am the captain, and my friend the engineer, of that craft."
+
+The big sailor's reply was an explosive yell.
+
+"Don't let that snake-in-the-grass Frenchman get away, mates," begged
+Jack, earnestly.
+
+"Jerry, I reckon you can hold the only gang way that opens in on this
+place, can't ye?" demanded the big sailor, turning to his sturdy looking
+shipmate.
+
+"I reckon, Hickey," said the other.
+
+"This Frenchman is one of a gang of foreign spies, who have taken this
+means to force us to furnish plans, drawings and all information about
+the Pollard submarine boats," Jack continued.  "You see how he has us
+ironed down here."
+
+"Got the keys to them irons, Frenchy?" demanded the big sailor, turning
+upon Gaston.
+
+"Yes," shivered the fellow, looking yellow with fright.
+
+"Then turn our shipmates loose.  Not too much delay about it, either,"
+ordered Hickey.
+
+Gaston obeyed as meekly as a lamb.  There was a look in Hickey's steady
+eyes which would lead one to suppose that the big sailor might be able
+to use his strength in tearing a worthless human being apart.
+
+"I hope you can understand all the thanks I feel like giving," remarked
+the young submarine captain, as he rose to his feet, then offered his
+hand to the big sailor.
+
+"Oh, stow the thanks, anyway," laughed Hickey.  "But Jerry and me ain't
+in for what we thought might be coming to us."
+
+"What was that?" asked Jack, with interest, turning back as he held out
+his hand to Jerry.
+
+"Why, ye see," nodded Hickey, after glancing down at the Frenchman, who
+was now unlocking Hal's handcuffs, "I've got a home, a little plantation
+about two miles back here, that I'm going to settle on for good one of
+these days.  The wife and kids live there.  I'd been telling Jerry about
+the craft and crew, and, as soon as we got shore leave, I took Jerry
+in tow.  We've seen up there two days, and to-night we started back
+through the woods, 'cause our leave is up at six in the morning.
+
+"Well, while we was coming through the woods we happened to stop a
+minute.  Then we see this Frenchy sneaking through the woods.  We
+wondered what was up.  Then he vanished.  We looked about, some
+quiet-like, and on tiptoe, and then we saw this shipmate o' your'n
+pry apart some bushes and head in this way.  It looked queer to us."
+
+"What did you think was up?" asked Jack.
+
+"Why, as near as we could figger, this was some smuggler's hidin' place,
+and we was figgerin' that perhaps Jerry and me would have five 'hundred
+or a thousand dollars' reward to divvy up on.  It wa'n't--but, anyway,
+Jerry an' me are proper glad we stumbled in on this, just the same.
+Now, mate, spin yer own yarn."
+
+Hal was on his feet, by this time, and shaking hands with the two
+rescuers.  Gaston, at the furthest end of the little room, again cowered
+against the wall, frightened and surly.
+
+Jack Benson told as much of the story as he thought wise, though he felt
+it best to leave out the names of M. Lemaire and Mlle. Nadiboff.
+
+Next Hal described how, at the hotel, he had set himself to watching
+Gaston; how he had shadowed the fellow.
+
+"Did he come out here in an auto?" asked Jack.
+
+"No; if he had, I couldn't have followed," Hal responded.  "But this
+place is barely four miles from the hotel.  We can get back in an hour."
+
+"What ye goin' to do with this feller, anyway?" demanded Hickey, jerking
+a thumb in the direction of the frightened Gaston.
+
+"Turn him over to the police," spoke Jack, promptly.  "Even if we fail
+to prove anything else Hal can help me fasten a charge of felonious
+assault on the scoundrel.  That will be enough to keep him locked up
+for a couple of years to come."
+
+Gaston heard this with a falling jaw, though he did not venture to say
+anything.
+
+"Well, Jerry and me are ready whenever you are, mates," hinted big
+Hickey.
+
+Jack nodded, and they filed out, Jerry coming last of all to make sure
+that the Frenchman did not lag behind.
+
+"Now, stand up, me bucko," ordered Hickey, seizing the chauffeur's
+collar as that worthy crawled through the bushes at the outer end of
+the tunnel.  "Tryin' to steal submarine secrets, was ye?  So some
+foreign nation'd have the trick of blowing our battleships to pieces,
+and the sailors on 'em?  Jerry, wot d'ye reckon 'ud be about right
+for Frenchy!"
+
+"Pass him over to me and I'll see," grinned the smaller sailor.
+
+Hickey grasped the frightened chauffeur in both hands, then fairly
+hurled him at the smaller sailor.  Jerry struck him once, with each
+lively fist, then sent the fellow spinning back to Hickey.  The latter
+caught Gaston, tossing him up in the air, then striking him hard as the
+fellow came down.  This done, the chauffeur was again hurled back at
+Jerry.  For some time the two sailors kept this up.  It was rough,
+heavy punishment.  Gaston bellowed like a sick bull under all the
+strenuous handling.  He must have ached in every bone in his body
+when Hickey finally caught him, on a rebound, and held him off at
+arm's length.
+
+"Had about enough, Frenchy?" demanded the big sailor.
+
+"Oh, mercy, monsieur!" panted the fellow wailingly.  "I have had much
+plenty to last me all my life."
+
+"I wish I knew whether ye was lyin'," muttered Hickey, thoughtfully.
+"I don't feel a bit tired, yet.  Do you, Jerry?"
+
+"Me?  The exercise has warmed me up fine," grinned the smaller sailor.
+
+"Mercy, messieurs, mercy!" wailed Gaston, sinking down to his shaking
+knees, for he feared that these grim tormentors meant to kill him.
+
+"I'd just as soon you'd let up on the scoundrel, if you don't mind,
+mates," broke in Jack.  "You see what a cur he is when he isn't having
+it all his own way.  I told him, back in the cave, that he'd be just
+this sort of a fellow if the tables happened to be turned."
+
+"Did ye say ye was going to turn him over to the officers?" asked
+Hickey.
+
+"Yes," spoke Jack Benson, decisively.  "A fellow plying the trade of
+this one needs to be locked up as long as possible."
+
+"Oh, no, no, no, my brave Captain!" implored Gaston, wobbling around
+upon his knees so as to face the submarine boy.  "Not the jail!  Not
+the prison!  Me!  I have always been as free as the birds of the air.
+I would die in prison."
+
+"I can't see where much loss will come in if you do," retorted Jack,
+coldly.  "Hal, you brought the handcuffs out with you?"
+
+He held up both pairs.
+
+"No, no, no!" pleaded Gaston, almost tearfully.  "Not such disgrace
+as that!"
+
+"Let me have a pair of the bracelets," requested Hickey, holding out
+one of his hands.  "Now, my tine bird, let me clip yer wings."
+
+Gaston submitted meekly enough, then was dragged to his feet.
+
+While Hal had brought out the lantern and the handcuffs, famished,
+thirst-tormented Jack Benson had looked after the water bottle and the
+sandwiches.  Now, as all hands trudged along toward the beach the
+young skipper ate and drank to his full content.
+
+Arrived in town, they roused a cottager.  From him they learned where
+to find the police station.  Gaston was thrown into a cell, and Jack
+entered formal complaint against the fellow.
+
+Jacob Farnum still awake, was found at the hotel.  When Hickey and Jerry
+returned aboard the gunboat neither felt so sorry about not having
+located a smuggler's camp in full operation.  Jacob Farnum had taken
+the sailor pair apart, presenting each with a hundred-dollar bill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A REMEMBRANCE FROM SHORE
+
+
+It was a drowsy looking submarine party that retired to a room in the
+hotel to talk over the situation.
+
+"Now, of course, first of all," declared Jacob Farnum, "we must take
+word of this whole affair to the commanding officer of the gunboat.  As
+the representative, here, of the United States Government, he can give
+us some advice as to what to do.  I am wondering whether M. Lemaire
+and Mlle. Nadiboff can be arrested."
+
+"Hal," demanded Jack, turning to his chum, "when you were prowling about
+at the cave, did you hear Gaston mention the name of M. Lemaire?"
+
+"No," replied Hastings, shaking his head.
+
+"Then there wouldn't be any witness to confirm my testimony," sighed
+Captain Benson.  "Without such a witness to aid me, I don't see how we
+could expect to prove anything legally against M. Lemaire."
+
+"As for that pretty young Russian woman--" began Mr. Farnum.
+
+"We haven't a single line of proof we could put out against her,"
+interposed Benson.  "She will have to escape, I am afraid.  For that
+matter, I'd hate to help in the prosecution of a woman."
+
+"So would I," retorted Mr Farnum.  "Yet, if she is helping to undermine
+the secrets of the United States Government, something will have to be
+done to stop her."
+
+"Perhaps," hinted Jack, "the best thing to do will be to see the
+commander of the gunboat."
+
+"Much the better course," observed David Pollard, who, during the last
+few moments had seemed dreamily silent.  "As you yourself suggested,
+Farnum, that officer should be consulted before a single step is taken
+in the matter."
+
+"Then we'll all go down to the shore," decided the shipbuilder.  "Even
+at this hour we shall find a boat."
+
+Ten minutes later the party had clambered up on the platform deck of
+the "Benson."  Williamson, having been left to sleep there alone
+through the night, had secured the entrance to the conning tower.
+A few sound thumps on the deck, however, roused that machinist, who,
+donning slippers and trousers, quickly ran up the spiral stairway,
+admitting them.
+
+"I'm mighty thankful to see you back, Captain," was the machinist's
+greeting.
+
+There being still nearly two hours of time to elapse before a call could
+well be made aboard the gunboat, Jack and Hal threw themselves into the
+berths of one of the staterooms.  That brief, sound nap proved the
+saving of them when, finally, with Messrs. Farnum and Pollard, they went
+on board the "Waverly."
+
+Lieutenant Commander Kimball received them in his own cabin, hearing
+Jack's story with utter amazement.
+
+"What I advise you to do, gentlemen, is to go ahead and prosecute the
+fellow Gaston on the charge of felonious assault.  I would, however,
+try to avoid having any testimony brought out in court to-day.  I will
+send one of my officers to see the public prosecutor, and ask that
+official to have the case continued for one week.  I will also wire the
+Navy Department at Washington, and await the reply of the Secretary
+before taking any other steps or offering you any other advice.  But do
+not needlessly alarm Lemaire or the young woman away from here."
+
+So well did the lieutenant commander accomplish his purpose that, when
+Jack and Hal went to the local court that forenoon, the public
+prosecutor promptly asked to have the case against the chauffeur
+continued for one week, and the court as promptly assented.
+
+Gaston was taken back to jail.  Though the fellow was well supplied with
+money, he did not have anywhere near enough to put up the five thousand
+dollars cash bail demanded by Florida justice.
+
+At the jail a watch was kept to see whether Gaston would have visitors,
+but none came.  M. Lemaire and Mlle. Nadiboff were known to be still at
+the hotel, but they did not go near their man in trouble.  Neither did
+Lemaire or the Russian appear about the grounds of the hotel.
+
+At noon a letter from Lieutenant Commander Kimball came aboard the
+submarine, inquiring whether Captain Benson could make it convenient
+to take him and several officers out to sea afternoon and give an
+exhibition of the boat's diving powers.
+
+"After we've taken the boat out ourselves, and tested her," was the
+answer Captain Jack sent back.  "With so many spies about we want to be
+sure that the boat is in safe running order before we risk the lives of
+half a dozen naval officers."
+
+A luncheon was eaten, after which, the young submarine captain hastily
+climbed the stairs to the conning tower.
+
+"Throw on the gasoline, Hal," he called back over his shoulder.  "And,
+as soon as we get way, test all the electric connections, before we
+attempt to do any diving.  Be sure of everything old fellow."
+
+Forward in the engine room the gas motors were soon moving merrily.  By
+the time that Eph had cast loose from moorings Jack signaled for slow
+speed ahead, and the grim-looking little Benson moved on out of the
+harbor.
+
+Once out of the harbor Captain Jack rang, successively, for two higher
+speeds.  The "Benson" answered both like a charm.
+
+"The gasoline part of the craft is working all right," declared the
+youthful skipper to Eph, who had come up into the tower.
+
+Fifteen minutes later Hal shouted up:
+
+"All electric connections appear safe, Captain.  And all the air
+compressors are working."
+
+"Are you ready to shut off the gasoline motors?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Go ahead, then, and we'll take a dive."  Down they shot below the
+surface, the boat going on a diving keel.  Then, for some minutes,
+Captain Jack ran his submarine pride along at a depth of fifty feet
+below surface.
+
+"Might as well rise, Captain," called up Mr. Farnum, coming from his
+stateroom.
+
+So Eph, at the young commander's orders, stood by to let the compressed
+air gradually into the water tanks.  As gracefully as ever the "Benson"
+rose to the surface.  Gasoline power was turned on again.
+
+"Everything is all safe, Captain," nodded Mr. Farnum.  "Run back and get
+your naval party."
+
+As they were to run, now, on the surface, Jack stepped out to stand
+by the deck wheel Eph and Hal came out with him, David Pollard standing
+further aft.
+
+As the submarine rounded in under the gunboat's stern the voice of
+Kimball called:
+
+"As well done as ever, Mr. Benson!  When shall we come on board?"
+
+"As soon as we're moored, sir," Jack shouted
+
+As the "Benson" ran to her moorings the youthful captain espied a shore
+boat that bore, as sole passenger, one of the uniformed, colored bell
+boys from the hotel.
+
+When Eph made the mooring cable fast, this shore boat ranged alongside.
+
+"Box for Captain Benson, sah," called the negro.
+
+"Right here," acknowledged Jack, going over to the rail.  The box
+proved to be of pasteboard.
+
+"Are you going to open it?" whispered Farnum.
+
+"Why, yes, sir; of course," Jack answered.
+
+"Better do it on deck, then," came the dry answer.  "It might contain
+something explosive, you know."
+
+Though he laughed, young Benson carefully untied the string that held
+the lid on, also carefully removing the latter.  Inside he discovered
+a handsome bouquet of roses, with a card attached.
+
+"Well, of all the assurance in the world?" gasped Jack Benson.
+
+"What's the matter!" queried Farnum.
+
+"Read what's written on this card, sir."
+
+The inscription ran:
+
+"Mlle. Sara Nadiboff is delighted at learning that Captain Jack Benson
+has returned in safety from his long walk."
+
+"Any answer, sah?" demanded the darkey in the boat.
+
+"None, thank you," replied Captain Jack, in an even tone.
+
+The boat continued on its way to the shore.
+
+"Say, what do you think of that?" demanded Eph, after he, too, had taken
+a look at the card tied to the flowers.
+
+"It is plain enough that our charming young Russian doesn't mean to drop
+Captain Benson's acquaintance just yet, if she can help it,"  laughed
+the shipbuilder.
+
+"What are you going to do with the flowers, old man?" asked Hal.
+
+"Flowers should be put in water, to make them keep, shouldn't they"
+queried the young submarine skipper, innocently.
+
+"Yep," nodded Eph Somers.
+
+"I hope these will keep fresh a long time, then," murmured Benson.
+
+Raising the bouquet he dropped it overboard the harbor--on the side of
+the boat away from the hotel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+CAPTAIN JACK BECOMES SUSPICIOUS
+
+
+So successful and enjoyable a trip did the naval officers have that, as
+the "Benson" was gliding back to the harbor, Lieutenant Commander
+Kimball broached a subject that had begun to interest the society
+people among the winter visitors to Spruce Beach.
+
+"Mr. Farnum," inquired the naval officer, "I have a favor to ask of you."
+
+"You know in advance, Mr. Kimball, that it is granted."
+
+"I hope it is, if it's a wise favor to ask," smiled the naval officer.
+"In brief, the idea is this: Naturally people in this neighborhood are
+all agog over this submarine craft.  Some of the more daring of the
+ladies have besought me to arrange for a few of them to have a trip
+on board, even to running beneath the surface.  Will you do that, for a
+party of our friends, to-morrow afternoon?"
+
+"We've been a good deal beset by spies lately as you have means of
+knowing," replied Mr. Farnum, slowly.  "You'll guarantee all of the
+guests, of course."
+
+"As a naval officer I wouldn't bring anyone aboard here whom I doubted,"
+replied the lieutenant commander, flushing.
+
+"I didn't mean to be offensive, Mr. Kimball.  But I have as great a
+reason as Uncle Sam can have for wanting to preserve the secrets of
+this boat from all but sworn officers and men of the Navy.  You and I
+are one in that desire, Mr. Kimball, so we'll gladly take out any party,
+ladies included, that you bring on board."
+
+"Thank you," answered Kimball.  "And I can assure you that I shall be
+very careful in making up my party.  Oh, but won't there be fluttering
+hearts at Spruce Beach tonight And I'm more than half afraid that I
+shall make an enemy of every lady of my acquaintance whom I have to
+leave out of the affair.  How many, guests can you take, Mr. Farnum?"
+
+"Not above fourteen, all told," replied the shipbuilder.
+
+"Then I shall go ashore myself this evening, to deliver my invitations."
+
+The shipbuilder also went ashore that evening, just to see whether he
+could learn anything about M. Lemaire and Mlle. Nadiboff.  Almost the
+first person Farnum encountered was reporter Hennessy.
+
+"Oh, your people are still here," answered Hennessy, in response to the
+shipbuilder's question.  "They're both keeping in the background,
+though.  It looks as though they feared to run away, and were waiting
+to see whether the lightning were going to strike them.  Now, that I've
+told you so much, Mr. Farnum, can't you give me a little more of the
+inside of this whole strange business?"
+
+"If I did," smiled the shipbuilder, "you'd send it to your paper."
+
+"Of course," admitted the reporter, honestly.
+
+"I'll tell you the best I can do, Hennessy.  You keep your eyes and ears
+open for us, and I'll give you this news story before I give it to any
+other newspaper man."
+
+"You surely will?" demanded the newspaper eagerly.
+
+"I will."
+
+"Then I'm here to help you"
+
+As the lieutenant commander had predicted, the ladies at the hotels were
+in a flutter of excitement that evening.  Every one who heard of the
+projected trip on the submarine boat, it seemed, wanted to be invited.
+By the time that Mr. Kimball's list was made up it consisted of three
+men and nine women, these in addition to the lieutenant commander
+himself and Mr Featherstone.
+
+As Jack paced the far end of the veranda that evening a girlish figure,
+only poorly concealed under a light wrap, stole after him.  As the
+young woman reached him she threw back a light veil, revealing the very
+pretty face of Mlle. Nadiboff.
+
+"So, my Captain," she cried, "you would forget me when you are getting
+up a party to take a cruise on your wonderful craft?"
+
+If young Benson felt anything as he looked, he was staggered by this
+amazing bit of effrontery.
+
+"You do not answer me," cried Mlle. Nadiboff.  "You feel guilty indeed,
+then?"
+
+"Perhaps 'astonished' would be the more accurate word," Jack replied,
+smiling now.
+
+"My Captain, you were very pleasant with me, the first evening that we
+met."
+
+"That was before," nodded Captain Benson, still smiling.  He stood cap
+in hand, his whole bearing respectful, for he did not intend to be
+discourteous even to this known adventuress.  He would grant her at
+least the courtesy due her sex.
+
+"Before what?" she asked.
+
+"Well, er--before that automobile ride the day."
+
+"And why should that change your attitude toward me, my Captain?" asked
+the young Russian.  Her tone was coaxing, almost cooing; her eyes
+extremely moist, as though the tears would spring forth in another
+instant.
+
+"Why, you see, Mademoiselle," laughed Jack, coolly, "the finish of that
+automobile ride was just a trifle too exciting for me.  I have plenty
+of the strenuous side of life out at sea.  When on shore my tastes are
+all for the quiet, peaceful life."
+
+"But surely you do not reproach me with having made the automobile ride
+unpleasant?"
+
+"Only that, as I remember it, you dropped some dust--or something--into
+my eyes, and right after that two men took me away in your car--and
+then things happened to me."
+
+"Why, that was all a joke," protested the handsome young woman, gazing
+keenly into his eyes.
+
+"Then I'll laugh now--ha!  ha!  But seriously, Mademoiselle, I haven't
+a sense of humor that will appreciate carrying a joke quite as far as
+that one was carried."
+
+"It was all a joke," Mlle Nadiboff insisted.  "At least, M. Lemaire so
+assured me.  What ever you may have thought, my Captain, I beg you will
+not believe that I had any notion of helping to cause you real
+discomfort."
+
+Her tone was so sincere in its ring, her eyes looked so honestly and
+appealingly into the boy's that Jack, for an instant, had to wonder
+whether he were dreaming.
+
+"My Captain," continued the Russian girl, in a voice that trembled
+softly, "I see, now, that I have been fearfully--cruelly--misunderstood
+by you.  That is more than I can bear.  Come, let us take a little walk
+together in the grounds.  I want you to tell me just what part you
+thought I had in some affair against you.  I insist; it is my right to
+know this.  Your arm, my Captain!"
+
+As she spoke, Mlle. Nadiboff slipped her soft little right hand inside
+of Captain Jack's arm.
+
+Captain Jack took hold of that hand to disengage it.  But Mlle. Nadiboff
+merely held the tighter, while the boy was conscious that she was
+gazing up at him appealingly.
+
+"I don't wish to be rude, Mademoiselle; don't, force me to be," the
+submarine boy urged.  "Will you kindly release my arm?"
+
+Then, with a subdued though angry exclamation, the girl obeyed.
+
+"You will not even hear me?" she cried, stamping one foot lightly
+against the veranda boards, while now her eyes brimmed with tears.
+
+"By jove, but she's a bully actor," thought Benson, with a sort of
+admiration.
+
+"I am sorry, Mademoiselle," he replied, "But I am wanted now.  I am
+forced to say 'good evening.'"
+
+With a bow he turned and left her, replacing his cap as he strode away.
+
+"Oh, that fool, that unnatural young man!" she cried, angrily, to
+herself.  "He prefers what he calls 'duty' to the friendly glance of a
+pretty eye.  Bah!  Perhaps he is laughing at me at this moment.  If he
+is, he is laughing much too soon, for I shall teach him a lesson or two.
+You are not yet beyond my reach, my brave young Captain!"
+
+The veil that Mlle. Nadiboff carefully wound so that two folds fell
+across her face concealed a hard, sneering, almost barbaric look that
+had crept quickly into that handsome young face.
+
+But Jack joined his own party at once.  Through the rest of the evening
+he did not encounter either the young woman or M. Lemaire.  The latter,
+in fact, had made himself practically invisible of late.
+
+The next afternoon, early, a launch from the gunboat brought off the
+pleasure party that was to make the trip on the submarine boat.
+
+Mr. Farnum and David Pollard were ashore at this time.  Captain Jack and
+Eph Somers stood on the platform deck to receive and welcome the party.
+
+The first young woman to whom Benson extended his hand to help her
+aboard held up a camera for him to take first of all.
+
+"Thank you," responded the young skipper, gravely.  "We will send this
+camera to the engine room.  It will be returned to you at the end of
+the trip."
+
+As he spoke, he slipped the camera box back to Eph, who started for
+the conning tower with it.
+
+"But I wish to take some photographs with it," cried the young woman,
+indignantly.  "Especially, a flashlight when we are below the surface
+of the ocean."
+
+"I am most sorry, madam," Captain Jack replied, politely, "but it is
+wholly out of the question for any photographs to be made aboard the
+boat."
+
+"No cameras!  No photographs?" cried two other young women, in something
+like consternation.  Then one of them added:
+
+"But we want two or three photos as souvenirs--Mr.  Kimball, we appeal
+to you."
+
+"I am wholly powerless in the matter," replied the lieutenant commander,
+gravely.  "Mr. Benson commands aboard this boat, and enforces the rules.
+I may add, however, that am wholly in sympathy with his decision.  You
+will understand, ladies, that there are many secrets in the handling
+of a submarine craft like this, It would be absolutely out of the
+question to allow anyone to carry away photographs of the interior or
+the working parts of the 'Benson.'"
+
+With that, two more cameras were passed up.  Eph as quickly handed them
+through the conning tower to Hal, who took them down to the engine room.
+
+Then Jack helped his visitors aboard, while Eph slipped forward to let
+go the moorings at the order.
+
+"Now, ladies and gentlemen," announced Captain Jack, "I think there will
+be room for all on deck.  If it pleases you, therefore, I propose that
+all remain on the platform deck while we make our run out to sea.  Then,
+when it comes time to dive and run under the surface, we can go below."
+
+This plan appeared to suit nearly everyone.
+
+"But I believe I'll go below, now," proposed one tall, blond, strongly
+built young woman who looked somewhat Swedish.  "I am afraid of too much
+chill air on the sea."
+
+"Then, if it please the rest, we will all go below," Jack answered
+amiably.
+
+There was instantly a chorus of dissent.  The tall, blond young woman
+had already made her way to the conning tower, accompanied by a young
+man of English appearance.  But Eph unconcernedly barred their way.
+
+"Step aside, if you please, young man," urged the Englishman.  "The
+lady wishes to go below."
+
+"Captain's permission necessary, sir," replied Somers, quietly.
+
+"You see, ladies and gentlemen," Jack explained, "it won't be quite
+possible to let visitors roam at will over the boat.  It would be
+against my instructions from the owner.  Either all must remain on deck,
+or all must go below."
+
+As he spoke the young skipper thought he saw a swift look pass between
+the young Swedish woman and her English escort.
+
+"Oh, well," replied the young woman, shrugging her shoulders, "I do not
+intend to be disagreeable.  If the others wish to remain on deck, I will
+do so, too."
+
+"Very good, Miss Peddensen," murmured the young Englishman.
+
+Jack Benson took his place at the deck wheel, and Eph, after Hal had
+come to the conning tower opening, hurried forward once more to cast off
+the moorings.  Then speed was called for, and the "Benson" made a
+graceful sight as she swept out of the little harbor with such a
+brilliant, interested company aboard.
+
+The submarine continued until she was three miles out at sea.
+
+"Now, if it pleases the company," Captain Jack called out, "we will
+go below and dive.  Then you, will know what it feels like to be running
+under the surface."
+
+From the ladies came a few little gasps of excitement.  Some of them,
+now that the moment had come, almost wished they had remained ashore.
+
+"No one need be afraid," smiled Jack.  "This boat has been thoroughly
+tested.  We shall go below the surface, true, but we shall come up
+again the instant that the proper devices are applied to our machinery.
+Let no one be afraid.  There is not even a particle of danger."
+
+"Not a particle," repeated Lieutenant Commander Kimball.  "This is an
+even safer sport than automobiling."
+
+"Let the Navy officers go below first, please," urged Jack, as the
+ladies began to crowd about the conning tower.  He wanted this done in,
+order that both Mr. Kimball and Mr. Featherstone might be able to use
+their eyes on the guests below.
+
+At last all had passed down the iron staircase save Eph, who remained
+by the wheel in the conning tower.
+
+"Pass directly aft, everybody, please," called Jack, quietly.
+
+"What's that for?" asked Miss Peddensen.
+
+"We cannot allow anyone except naval officers to see how our diving
+apparatus is worked", replied Jack.  "Some of you step into the
+staterooms, on either side, please.  All of the visitors must be aft
+of this curtain."
+
+The extreme after end of the cabin had been rigged with a heavy curtain
+that could be dropped into place.
+
+"Why, I feel as if we were all being penned up here and held for the
+slaughter," gasped one American girl, in a tone of fright.
+
+"Yes, indeed!" protested Miss Peddensen.  "This is going too far."
+
+"It strikes me as being a good deal like an outrage," blurted the
+young Englishman.  "Mr. Kimball, can't you--won't you interfere in
+this matter?"
+
+"I am very sorry," replied the lieutenant commander, "but I cannot.
+This step is necessary, in order to prevent anyone from having an
+improper view of the working of the craft.  I am going behind the
+curtain with you.  Mr. Featherstone will remain out in the cabin to
+aid in the handling of the boat.  You need none of you feel any
+uneasiness."
+
+Both Miss Peddensen and the Englishman ceased their objections.  But
+Jack, remembering the glance that had passed between the pair on deck,
+remained behind the curtain, too, as he dropped it.
+
+"Go ahead, Hal!"  he called.  "Fifty feet under the surface.  Dive
+gently."
+
+"O-o-o-oh!" came in little screams of alarm as the guests felt the floor
+on which they stood inclining at a sloping angle.
+
+"We're going below the surface now," young Benson informed them.  "We'll
+soon be running on an even keel."
+
+"All below," called Hal Hastings in a few moments.
+
+"And all clear?" asked Jack.
+
+"All clear, Captain."
+
+"Jack Benson threw aside the heavy curtain, come forward, slowly ladies
+and gentlemen, and take seats," was Jack's invitation.  "I am sorry I
+shall have to ask you all to remain seated, but we cannot have any
+serious shifting of weight while we are running under the water."
+
+Though Eph was at the tower wheel Hal Hastings was now virtually in
+command of the boat, by previous arrangement, for young Benson meant to
+keep a sharp, though covert, eye on passengers.
+
+The young skipper noted, swiftly, that Miss Peddensen had taken the seat
+furthest aft in the cabin, while the young Englishman was seated at the
+forward end of the party of guests.
+
+"Oh, I say, Captain Benson," called the Englishman, "are you permitted
+to show me how you know just how far below the surface you are?"
+
+"The gauge tells that," replied Jack.  "But I will ask you to excuse
+me from describing it, as I wish to keep my mind on the running of the
+boat.  Mr. Hastings will oblige you; or, I don't doubt, one of the
+naval officers will."
+
+Even this momentary distraction, however, had given Miss Peddensen time
+to slip something out of one of her wide sleeves into her lap.  And now
+the young Swedish woman sat so that the object taken from her sleeve was
+concealed behind the woman who sat next to her.
+
+It wasn't many moments ere Jack noted some thing about the young Swedish
+woman that caused the young skipper to turn, every now and then, for a
+swift though hidden glance in her direction.
+
+"What on earth is Miss Peddensen doing?" wondered the submarine boy.
+"Hang it, I believe she's up to something that she ought not to be
+doing!"
+
+Through he did not turn and walk in her direction, Jack, thereafter,
+kept the young Swedish woman much more under secret observation.
+
+"By Jove, I know what she's doing, now," muttered the young skipper.
+"That movement of her elbow betrays her, and her eyes are fixed, much of
+the time on her lap.  If she isn't sketching something, on the sly, then
+my eyesight isn't as good as it used to be!"
+
+Captain Jack Benson found himself quickly aquiver with suspicion and
+indignation.
+
+"Yet I can't afford to make any mistakes," he told himself, uneasily.
+"I've got to be absolutely sure before I can take the risk of starting
+a human cyclone about my ears!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE GOVERNMENT TAKES A HAND
+
+
+Yet, for a brief interval more, Jack Benson hesitated.
+
+"Is the young woman sketching, or is she merely writing?" he wondered,
+anxiously.  He watched her a little while longer.
+
+"No; she's sketching.  Those are drawing strokes she's making."
+
+Then, looking wholly blank, Jack Benson turned on his heel.  He looked
+first at one mechanism, then at another.  Yet, presently, stood close
+to Lieutenant Commander Kimball's ear.
+
+Only a few words were said, but the naval officer understood instantly.
+
+As Captain Jack turned and went back, Kimball also sauntered along,
+although he did not appear interested in the submarine boy's movements.
+Yet it was not long when both appeared before the young Swedish woman.
+
+"Miss Peddensen," murmured the lieutenant commander, "may I see what
+you are writing?"
+
+The woman looked up, her face composed, her eyes dancing with mirth.
+
+"Why, surely, Mr. Kimball," she replied, laughing.  "And very silly stuff
+you'll find it, too.  I have been jotting down my impressions upon
+finding myself riding under the surface of the sea.  I do not handle
+your English language very well, as you will see."
+
+Mr. Kimball glanced hastily through the three or four pages of rather
+closely written note paper.  It was, as the young woman had stated,
+a very amateurish composition, in very stilted English.
+
+The naval officer felt a sense of mortification and his face reddened
+slightly.  He had been led to expect that he would find something crime
+on these sheets of paper.  Instead, he scanned a stupid piece of
+composition.
+
+"I would die of humiliation, to have that read before all these people,"
+murmured the young woman.
+
+Lieutenant Commander Kimball gave Jack Benson a covert elbow-dig in the
+ribs, a move said, as plainly as words:
+
+"The joke is on you."
+
+Jack, however, through half open eyes, had been watching on his own
+account.  Suddenly he made a dive forward, shooting his hands down close
+to Miss Peddensen's well-booted feet.
+
+"That same old ship-rat!" exclaimed the submarine boy.  "I'll catch the
+beast before he goes under your skirts, Miss Peddensen."
+
+At the mention of a rat so dangerously close young woman almost shot out
+of her seat in anxiety to get away.
+
+As she bounded something dropped down out of the wide right sleeve of
+her coat.  It was a small memorandum book.
+
+This was just what Jack Benson caught, in place of the pretended rat.
+Moreover, the young skipper was clever enough to catch the book so that
+it fell into his hands open.
+
+"It wasn't a rat, after all, Miss Peddensen," smiled Jack, straightening
+up and holding the open memorandum book so that both he and Kimball
+could see what was traced on the two pages that lay exposed.
+
+There were sketches of the compressors, sketches of the mechanism by
+which the compressed air was forced into the tanks to drive the water
+out--in fact, sketches of many vital features in the control of the
+boat.  Nor was more than a glance needed to make it plain that this
+young woman artist possessed expert knowledge of machinery.
+
+At the cry of "rat" three or four women jumped from their seats.  The
+one nearest Miss Peddensen moved hastily to the forward end of the cabin.
+
+"My dear young woman," murmured the lieutenant commander, dropping into
+the vacated seat beside the Swedish girl, "you won't mind, will you,
+if I keep these little matters to look over at my convenience!"
+
+There was something so compelling in the look that flashed briefly in
+the naval officer's eyes that Miss Peddensen lost color, and stammered:
+
+"No-o-o, certainly not; if such silly things interest you."
+
+"They interest me very much indeed," murmured Kimball, thrusting
+"composition" and sketches inside his blouse.
+
+As the naval officer plainly intended to remain where he was, Jack Benson
+turned, sauntering forward.
+
+"Another spy nailed, beyond a single doubt," muttered the young submarine
+commander.  "Will there never be an end to them."
+
+As Captain Jack glanced at the young Englishman, Drummond by name, he saw
+an unmistakable flash of hostility in the Englishman's eyes.
+
+"So you're a spy, too?" quivered Benson, inwardly, turning on his heel.
+After that, howsoever, the submarine boy took good care to keep Drummond
+under covert watch.
+
+In time the "Benson" returned to the surface, being now much nearer land
+then when the aft had made its dive.  A few minutes later the boat ran
+into the harbor and made fast at its moorings.
+
+"What are you going to do about the young woman?"  Jack found a chance
+to whisper, as all hands gathered on the platform deck.
+
+"I don't believe I have actual authority to do anything," Kimball
+returned, also in a whisper.  "But we have the drawings, and that
+writing, which may be a clever cipher.  With that I'm afraid we'll have
+to remain content."
+
+A launch from the gunboat was in waiting.  In this the shore guests were
+taken back to land.  Hardly had the launch left the side of the
+submarine, when a cutter, also from the gunboat, put in alongside.  Two
+men in ordinary citizen's dress clambered aboard.
+
+"Lieutenant Commander Kimball?" inquired one of the pair.
+
+"Yes," acknowledged the naval officer.  "May we see you below, in the
+cabin of this boat."
+
+"No!" replied Kimball, sternly.
+
+"Oh, as you please, of course," smiled the one of the pair who had first
+spoken.  "Probably I am at fault, though, in not introducing my
+companion and myself.  My friend is Mr. Packwood; my name is Trotter.
+We are Secret Service men sent down here by the Secretary of the Navy,
+in answer to your dispatch."
+
+As Trotter spoke he threw back the lapel of his coat, displaying a badge.
+
+"I have also some papers to show you, Mr. Kimball," continued the
+Secret Service man.
+
+"Oh, of course you may come below," smiled the naval officer.  "And,
+Benson; I guess this business belongs to you, too."
+
+So Jack descended with the party, while the other submarine boys and
+Williamson remained on deck.
+
+"You have, been bothered with spies, Captain?" asked Trotter, turning
+to young Benson, when they had reached the cabin table.
+
+"Haven't we, though!" muttered Jack.
+
+"And even took one out with you on this last trip of yours," laughed Mr.
+Trotter, producing from an inner pocket a book bound in black.
+
+"Miss Peddensen, the Swedish young woman?" demanded Captain Jack.
+
+"Here's the one I mean," replied Trotter, opening the book, which proved
+to be an album, and turning the pages over rapidly.  He pointed to a
+photograph.
+
+"That's Miss Peddensen," cried Jack, looking up at Lieutenant Commander
+Kimball for confirmation.
+
+"Well, Peddensen is one of the names she has used," smiled Trotter.
+
+"What foreign government does she serve?" demanded Benson.
+
+Trotter shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Well, the Department has pretty good information that she has served
+England, France, Germany, Austria, Russia--oh, these spies have no
+country!  They serve the fattest international purse!"
+
+"Here is what we took from Miss Peddensen," said Kimball, gravely, laying
+down on the table the sketchbook and the "composition."
+
+Taking up the latter, Mr. Trotter, after a glance declared:
+
+"This is written in a secret cipher, most likely.  Packwood, this comes
+in your peculiar line of work.  The sketches are easy enough to
+understand.  They are of the mechanisms displayed in this cabin."
+
+"Yes, this is a cipher," declared Packwood, thoughtfully, after scanning
+the sheets a few moments.  "With some study I can make it out."
+
+"Who's the young Englishman who escorted Miss Peddensen?" demanded
+Captain Jack.
+
+"Never saw him until I glanced at him in the launch just now," replied
+Trotter.  "He may be another spy, unknown to us, or he may be merely a
+good-natured and wholly innocent young chap whom the Swedish girl has
+lured into her service."
+
+"What are these other pictures?" inquired Mr. Kimball, beginning to
+turn the leaves.
+
+"All of 'em photos of people known to be engaged in stealing naval
+secrets for foreign powers," replied Trotter.  "Captain Benson may
+keep this album for future use.  I've another copy for you, Mr. Kimball."
+
+"Why, here's a good likeness of Mlle. Nadiboff," cried Jack Benson,
+pausing in turning the leaves and glancing down at the picture of a face
+he had good cause to remember.  "And here, opposite her, is M. Lemaire!"
+
+"Oh, yes; they're both old offenders," nodded Trotter.  "Turn along, and
+see if you remember any more faces."
+
+"Here's Gaston, who is now in jail here," nodded Jack.
+
+"Is he, though?" asked Trotter, with interest.
+
+"What charge?"
+
+"Felonious assault upon Hastings and myself."
+
+"Good," chuckled Trotter.  "I shall have to see the judge privately, and
+ask him to make sure that Gaston Goubet gets the longest sentence
+possible.  Nothing like prison bars to stop the work of these
+international spies!"
+
+"Why, here's even little Kamanako," smiled as he turned over another
+page.
+
+"Yes, and a very smooth and slippery little spy that Jap is," declared
+Mr. Trotter.  "He steals all kinds of secrets, from the details of
+sixteen inch guns down to the method of dyeing a blanket in a mill."
+
+"Are you going to do anything with the Peddensen woman?" inquired
+Lieutenant Commander Kimball.
+
+"Ain't I, though--just!" answered Mr. Trotter.  "You caught her
+red-handed, with drawings, cipher and all."
+
+"Will she be imprisoned?" inquired Captain Jack.
+
+"Well, that isn't the usual way," replied Trotter.  "The young woman is
+more likely to be taken to New York, given a passage ticket across the
+ocean, and notified that, if she tries to return to this country, she
+will find that her photograph is on file at every port of entry.  It
+will spoil her games, without making much of a fuss."
+
+The cutter waiting alongside conveyed Kimball and his brother officer,
+Featherstone, back to the gunboat.  Then it ran into shore; putting Mr.
+Trotter and his silent companion once more on land.
+
+For some minutes after that Jack, Hal and Eph remained absorbed in the
+pictures in this album of known naval spies.  There were more than two
+dozen of these photographs, some of men, some of women.  On the same
+page with each picture was given the subject's true name, if known,
+also the spy's aliases, and other information.
+
+"Sara Nadiboff, twenty-nine, yet looks like twenty," muttered Hal,
+studying the information under the young Russian woman's photograph.
+
+"And Kamanako is really Lieutenant Osuri," muttered Jack.  "Yet the
+fellow was working in the hotel kitchen until he could get a chance
+to apply for a job on this craft."
+
+"I don't recognize any other spies among these pictures," muttered
+Hal.  "The only ones here that we know we had already guessed."
+
+"Look at that time," muttered Jack, jumping up.  "I must get on shore
+and see what Mr. Farnum's orders are.  And--" thrusting the album
+in his coat pocket and buttoning it up,  "I'll take this picture gallery
+along.  Our employer will be highly interested in it."
+
+It was dusk by the time that Benson reached the platform deck.  After
+a few moments he succeeded in hailing a harbor boat.  Yet it was quite
+dark by the time that Captain Jack stepped on shore.
+
+Instead of going around by the road Jack decided to cross the grounds.
+As he was walking briskly toward the hotel, an athletic-looking young
+man stepped out suddenly, from behind of the big trees, blocking the
+submarine boy's path.
+
+"Good evening, Mr. Drummond," Jack hailed, quietly.
+
+"Now, you halt and stand right where you are," retorted the Englishman,
+nervously handling a heavy walking stick that he carried.  "I don't know
+whether it's going to be a good evening for you, or not, young man.  Do
+you know that your cursed meddling has resulted in the arrest of a most
+estimable young woman?"
+
+"Who?" asked Jack, coolly.
+
+"Miss Peddensen," replied Drummond, angrily.
+
+"Oh, I guess the secret service men know what they're about," said Jack
+somewhat sarcastically.
+
+"And I know what I'm about, too!" roared the enraged Drummond, raising
+his cane, wrathfully.  "Benson, you young sneak, I'm going to brain you!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+DRUMMOND'S LITTLE SURPRISE--FOR HIMSELF
+
+
+It didn't happen just that way.
+
+As Drummond swung his cane and brought it down with crushing force, aimed
+at the submarine boy's head, Jack wasn't there.
+
+Instead, Benson sprang about two feet to one, side.  It would have been
+a fearful blow had Jack's head been in the way.  As it was, the cane
+hit the ground with such force as to be thrown from the Englishman's
+hand.
+
+With a growl, the fellow leaped forward and snatched up his stick.  Jack
+Benson stood leaning carelessly against a tree, in a way that enraged
+Drummond all the more.
+
+"I'll show you!" snarled the Englishman.  With that he aimed a blow,
+sideways, at Benson's head Jack ducked, then dodged out.  The cane hit
+the tree with a force that jarred the assailant and all but dislocated
+his wrist.  Again he dropped the stick.
+
+Benson gave a hearty ringing laugh and this enraged the Englishman past
+endurance.  Then Jack added, "Is that the best you can do?"
+
+"I'll show you!" roared the other, making a leap forward.  He charged
+straight at the submarine boy, who wheeled and darted on toward hotel.
+
+"Don't run, you coward!" came the flying taunt.
+
+Just then Jack Benson fell, though he did it on purpose.  Straight in
+the path of the irate Englishman the submarine boy dropped, curling
+himself up.
+
+It was too late for Drummond to halt, or to change his course.  He
+tripped over prostrate young Benson, then lurched forward landing on
+his face.
+
+Up sprang Jak Benson, planting two sterling good kicks.
+
+"You beast!  Wait until I get up!" roared the victim, in a voice like
+a bull's bellow.
+
+"What's the matter here?" demanded an astonished voice, and Mr. Trotter,
+after a short dash, bounded through the darkness, arriving on the scene
+just as Drummond was getting up.
+
+"This fellow--" began Jack.
+
+"'Fellow'?" broke in Drummond, angrily.
+
+"This fellow," Jack continued, calmly, "accused me of causing Miss
+Peddensen's arrest, and promised to brain me."
+
+"Too bad you've allied yourself with that young woman," muttered Mr.
+Trotter looking keenly into the Englishman's face.
+
+"What d'ye mean?" demanded Drummond.
+
+"Miss Peddensen turns out to be a well-known military and naval spy,
+though she hasn't operated in this country before in five years,"
+replied Mr. Trotter, coolly.  "However, she has been caught trying to
+steal the secrets of the submarine boat, and she's under arrest.  My
+side partner, Packwood, is now engaged in unraveling a cipher that was
+taken from her."
+
+"That's an impudent lie," asserted the Englishman, hotly.
+
+"No it isn't," laughed Mr. Trotter.  "It's a Secret Service fact."
+
+"I'm going to go to Miss Peddensen, now, then," asserted Drummond.
+
+"Right-o," drawled Trotter, so significantly that Drummond shot a quick
+look at the officer, demanding:
+
+"What d'ye mean by that?"
+
+"I'm going to take you to Miss Peddensen," returned the Secret Service
+man.
+
+"I'll go all the way to Washington, by tonight's express, to see the
+young lady freed from this outrageous mistake," stormed the Englishman.
+
+"I don't know about your going to Washington--to-night," replied
+Trotter, yawning.
+
+"What have you to do with that?" demanded Drummond, harshly.
+
+"Why, I reckon, Mr. Drummond, you're my prisoner.  You won't very easily
+go anywhere to-night, without my consent."
+
+"Your prisoner?" demanded the Englishman angrily.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"By what right do you arrest me!  What have I done?"
+
+"Well, for one thing, you've tried to injure the captain of the submarine
+boat, all because he caught your woman friend at strange tricks on board
+the 'Benson.' For another reason, because we suspect anyone who defends
+or upholds the spy.  Be good enough to step along with me, Mr. Drummond."
+
+"I'll do nothing of the sort," blurted the astounded Englishman
+
+"You'll go all the same," warned Mr. Trotter, first of all displaying
+his Secret Service badge, next running a hand back briefly to a revolver
+that rested in a hip pocket.  "I don't much care, Drummond, whether you
+walk with me, or whether I have to send for an ambulance to bring you
+along.  But you'll go just where I want you to."
+
+The Englishman was too much terrified to reply.  Two or three times he
+opened his mouth as though to speak, but, instead, merely swallowed.
+
+"Come, now--forward march" advised Mr. Trotter.  Drummond, without
+allowing himself to hesitate, went away at the side of the Secret
+Service man.
+
+"Don't you want your cane?" called Jack Benson.  Drummond did not
+condescend to answer, so the submarine boy slipped back to the tree,
+where he found the stick.  It was a handsome piece of polished partridge
+wood, surmounted by a handsomely wrought head of gold.
+
+"This will make an interesting souvenir to keep aboard the boat," mused
+Benson, swinging the stick as he continued his walk.
+
+At the veranda Jack came face to face with Mlle. Nadiboff, just returning
+from an unaccompanied stroll down by the water front.  To the submarine
+boy's astonishment the handsome Russian greeted him most amiably.
+
+"You have not forgotten old friends, I hope, my Captain?" she added,
+smiling and with a pretty little coaxing way.
+
+"There are some old friends," replied Captain Jack, lifting his cap,
+"whom it is impossible to forget."
+
+"I hope you will continue to regard me as a friend," responded Mlle.
+Nadiboff, more seriously, looking him fully in the eyes.
+
+"Why?" queried Jack.
+
+"I may need a friend," she replied, dropping her glance for a moment.
+
+"You in need of anything--even a friend?" cried Captain Jack,
+incredulously.
+
+"I may need a friend who can speak a good word for me; who can forget
+things, or explain them." went on Mlle. Nadiboff, resting a hand
+pleadingly on his sleeve "My Captain, if need be, I shall send for you.
+Do not fail me!  You won't?"
+
+It looked as though the tears lay just behind her eyes.  The submarine
+boy felt that the situation was becoming too interesting, so he lifted
+his cap once more as he turned on his heel.
+
+"Mlle. Nadiboff," he sent back to her, "I trust you will never want for
+the most reliable friends."
+
+He turned down the veranda to go toward the office door, when he
+encountered another surprise.
+
+Leaning against one of the posts stood Kamanako, as natty and trim as
+though he had come from the tailor's.
+
+Looking up with a most friendly smile, the little Japanese saluted.
+
+"Why, how do you do?" Jack greeted him, halting.  "I had an idea you
+had left Spruce Beach."
+
+"I should have done so, but I started too late," replied Kamanako,
+still smiling.  Nothing ever daunts that Japanese smile.  One of these
+little men, being led away to have his head chopped off, goes with
+a smile on his little brown face.
+
+"Started too late?" asked Jack.  "How was that?"
+
+"Now, you laugh at me," replied the Japanese.
+
+"Laughing at you?  Not a bit!"
+
+"You have told some one that I am a spy," replied Kamanako, without
+a trace of grudge in his voice.  "So now, I cannot leave Spruce Beach.
+Ticket agent, he will not sell me.  If I try to go on foot, the roads
+are watched.  If I take to woods, even, I shall be found."
+
+"Sorry," nodded Jack Benson, and passed on.  "So the Secret Service net
+is around the place, and no suspected person can get away?" muttered
+the submarine boy.  "Well, that's it should be.  I wonder if there
+are any more of this strange crew--men or women spies that don't
+happen to have suspected so far?  If there are, I don't believe they'll
+wriggle through the meshes of old Uncle Sam's Secret Service net,
+anyway."
+
+His mind full of the doings of the day, Captain Jack Benson found Messrs.
+Farnum and to whom he surely had much to tell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+"REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED TO THE 'MAINE'!"
+
+
+"We'll have no more trouble, I imagine," nodded Jacob Farnum, with a
+satisfied air, when Jack, at a table in the corner of the dining room,
+had told, in low tones, all that had happened.
+
+"The spies are all on the defensive, now, beyond a doubt," added David
+Pollard.  "They'll be too busy keeping their wrists out of handcuffs to
+devote any of their time to trying to get at the secrets of the 'Benson.'"
+
+"I hope you're both right," said Captain Jack, gravely.
+
+"Why, what leads you to think that we may not be?" asked Farnum,
+curiously.
+
+"Nothing in the way of facts," Jack admitted.  "Yet there may be others
+of this infernal spy gang who have not yet shown their hands, of whose
+existence the Secret Service knows nothing."
+
+"Well, what can they do, if you don't allow any strangers on board the
+boat?" asked Mr. Farnum, point blank.
+
+"Nothing much," muttered Benson, "unless--"
+
+"Well, unless what?"
+
+"See here," asked the submarine boy, "what is usually done to such spies
+by the United States Government?"
+
+"Why, the law provides that, in war time, such spies can be shot in
+mighty quick order," replied Mr. Farnum.  "In peace times the law doesn't
+allow anything but sending spies to prison."
+
+"But what does the Government usually do?" pursued Captain Jack.  "It
+seems to me I've read of suspected spies being caught around American
+fortifications, trying to make notes, or take photographs."
+
+"Yes," nodded the shipbuilder.
+
+"And I think I've read, also, that such spies are generally warned and
+then let go."
+
+"That's the usual procedure, I believe," admitted Farnum.
+
+"Then, after the spies who have been bothering us have all been rounded
+up and scolded, they'll be given railroad tickets and allowed go on
+their way?" asked Jack.
+
+"Frankly, I'm afraid that's just what will be in the present case,"
+admitted Jacob Farnum.
+
+"Then," grumbled Captain Jack, making a rather wry face, "it would seem
+that being a foreign spy, in this country, provides one with a calling
+that is a good deal safer than being just a lightning rod peddler or a
+bill collector."
+
+"Yes; it's really so," admitted the shipbuilder, thoughtfully.
+
+"If that is the case," muttered Captain Jack, "the spies here at Spruce
+Beach will probably keep a bit quiet until they see how things are going
+to turn out.  As soon as their minds are made easy by our generous
+government, then they'll plot their next moves.  If they can't accomplish
+anything more, they may content themselves with a general revenge of
+some sort on the whole lot of us."
+
+"You're not afraid of their vengeance, are you?" asked Mr. Farnum,
+looking up, and into the eyes of his young captain.
+
+"I'm not afraid, of anything, sir," retorted Jack.  "The master of a
+submarine boat has no right to be afraid of things.  Even if these
+scoundrels should get me, in the end, all I can to is to smile, and
+say: 'So be it.'"
+
+Then, in the next breath, Benson added, earnestly:
+
+"It doesn't matter so much if these rascals get me, but I don't want them
+to work any mischief to the submarine."
+
+"Bravo!" nodded David Pollard, looking on with a smile.
+
+It is a fact that life in a constant atmosphere of danger renders the
+average man all but indifferent to fear.  Those who meet perils daily
+grow to consider danger as all a part of the day's work.  Perils which,
+a year before, would have kept Jack Benson awake with dread for a week
+now appeared to him as not worth thinking about until they happened.
+
+Jack remained ashore until half-past nine.  He hoped to hear some word
+of what the Secret Service men might have learned, or of what these
+representatives of Uncle Sam were doing.  But no word came, so the
+submarine boy went down to the beach.  There was but one harbor boat
+in sight.
+
+"Ah done thought yo'd be gwine back to do little ship, sah, so Ah
+done waited fo' you'," explained the negro in the boat.  "Any mo'
+ob yo' pahty to go abo'd to-night, sah?"
+
+"No," Jack answered.  "I'll be the last one to put off to-night."
+
+Nor did he forget to reward the darkey's enterprise by handing him
+rather more than the usual boat hire.
+
+As he stepped aboard Jack found Hal pacing the platform deck.
+
+"Keeping deck watch, old fellow?  I'm glad see that," Captain Jack
+said, commendingly.
+
+"Yes; I'm on until midnight.  Then Williamson stands watch until
+three-thirty in the morning.  After that Eph comes up and takes the
+trick until it's time to call us all."
+
+"When do I come on watch?" asked Jack.
+
+"I never heard the captain of a craft had to stand watch in port,"
+laughed Hal Hastings "Besides, old fellow, we couldn't be sure you'd
+be aboard to-night.  So the watches are all arranged.  Anyway, you'd
+better turn in and get a full night's sleep, for you've more on your
+mind than the rest of us."
+
+"Then tell Williamson, and have him pass the word on to Eph, that watch
+ought to be very strictly kept," answered the young captain.
+
+A few minutes Benson remained on deck, chatting with his chum.  When he
+at last went below the submarine captain lost little time getting into
+his berth.
+
+When Machinist Williamson came on deck at midnight a light wind was
+blowing, but the air was not really chilly.  In his heavy reefer the
+machinist felt wholly comfortable after he had lighted his pipe and
+started his slow walk back and forth along the deck.
+
+There did not appear to be overmuch sense in keeping this deck watch.
+Only a short distance away lay the United States gunboat "Waverly,"
+with her alert marine guard.  Though there was no moon, the starlight
+was bright enough to enable a marine on the gunboat to see anything that
+might skim over the water toward the "Benson."
+
+Yet Williamson was on watch, under instructions, and he was a faithful
+fellow who meant to do his full duty.
+
+"Seems kinder tough, of course, to be so long out of one's bunk in the
+middle of the night," the machinist admitted to himself.
+
+Yet, had his vision been keen enough to know what was happening on shore,
+almost directly opposite the "Benson," Williamson would have been
+tenfold more alert.
+
+Over there on the shore, in a clump of flowering, semi-tropical bushes,
+crouched two men.  On the ground with them lay a metal cylinder some two
+feet long and seven inches in diameter.  There was also a coil of wire
+and a boxed magneto battery.
+
+One of the pair held to his eyes a pair of night marine glasses.
+Incessantly this watcher kept his gaze focused on Williamson.
+
+About two o'clock in the morning Williamson found it necessary to go
+below for a few moments.  After reaching the conning tower he paused,
+for a few moments, to look keenly all about him.
+
+Yet, look as he would through the night, the machinist's vision could
+not see that the bush hidden pair on shore, guessing his intention
+from his stop by the conning tower, had silently taken to the water.
+With them they towed the metal cylinder, which floated.  To the cylinder
+was attached one end of the light wire.
+
+Some distance out from the shore the pair halted, treading water, only
+their eyes above the surface.  But Williamson could not make out such
+small objects at the distance.  Then he went below.
+
+"Now, for it," breathed one of the swimming pair, tensely.
+
+Both swimmers struck out strongly, yet silently, making fast progress
+through the water by means of some of the best strokes known to swimmers.
+
+When they reached the port side of the submarine Williamson was still
+below.  Nor had the attention of the marine guard on the "Waverly"
+been attracted.
+
+In just another swift instant the swimmers made a dive that carried them
+and their cylinder below the surface.
+
+Straight up against the bottom of the hull the pair went.
+
+When they returned to the surface the metal cylinder was in place below.
+
+Glancing backward only once, to make sure that Williamson was not yet
+on deck, and that the gunboat's marine guard had not detected their
+stealthy work, the swimming pair struck out lustily for shore.
+
+Back into the same clump of bushes they made their way.  In the first
+few moments neither of the recent swimmers appeared to dare a glance
+into the face of his comrade.  In silence they fitted the shore end of
+the wire to the battery.
+
+Then one of the pair seized the handle to pomp the fatal electric spark
+along the wire to the hidden mine under the "Benson's" hull.
+
+"Remember what happened to the 'Maine'!" this wretch chuckled hideously.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A JOKE ON THE SECRET SERVICE!
+
+
+"What's that noise?" wondered Williamson.
+
+He stopped, listening intently, for he was still below.
+
+Against the bottom of the "Benson's" hull he heard a steady, slow,
+monotonous bumping.  As he listened, his face took on an anxious look.
+
+"We're in a friendly port," muttered the machinist.  "It can't be
+anything very wrong, and yet--"
+
+That slow steady bumping continued.
+
+"Anything bumping against the bull of a boat at anchor, in that fashion
+may be wrong," concluded the man, swiftly.
+
+His mind made up to this much, the rest was not difficult to decide.  The
+cause of that bumping required instant investigation.  Williamson caught
+up the tool that came quickest to hand, a pair of nippers, thrust them
+into his jumper and raced up to the deck.
+
+"If it's any real mischief," he muttered, "I hope I won't be too
+slow--too late!"
+
+With that he dived overboard, at the starboard rail, the side nearest
+the gunboat.  There was a splash--then the waters closed over the
+machinist.
+
+He came up at about the point he had planned, where he had heard the
+bumping.
+
+Held below water as he was by the under-hull of the submarine, he could
+move with certainty, though but slowly.
+
+Groping, the machinist encountered the metal cylinder.  Quickly he felt
+for its connections which, like a flash, he knew must exist.  He found
+the wire, but reached for another.  It all had to be done swiftly, for
+his reserve "wind" was fast giving out.  Not finding a second wire, he
+fastened his nippers against the first wire--then cut.  Now, steering
+the metal cylinder, he pushed it out from under the hull.  Cylinder and
+man rose together.
+
+Whew!  What a powerful breath the man took!  Then he steered the cylinder
+carefully against the hull, and managed to hold it there until he could
+reach a piece of cordage and make the cylinder fast.
+
+This done, he dashed below, thumping hard on the door of the stateroom
+occupied by Captain Jack Benson and Hal Hastings.
+
+"Eh?  What is it?" called Jack, almost instantly.
+
+"You're wanted on deck, Captain--instantly," replied the dripping
+machinist.
+
+"Oh, all right, Williamson," and Benson's feet hit the stateroom floor.
+
+A minute later he was above, Hal following only some twenty seconds
+behind his young chief.
+
+Williamson swiftly told how he had heard the bumping against the hull,
+and how he had found the cylinder, with a wire connection.
+
+"Gunboat, ahoy!" roared Captain Jack, snatching up a megaphone and
+holding it to his lips.
+
+The response was prompt.  In less than three minutes a cutter, containing
+an officer, a corporal and four marines, was alongside.
+
+"The first thing for us to do is to take that cylinder aboard the
+'Waverly' and investigate it," decided Ensign Foss.  "I'll leave the
+marines here until I get further instructions from the commanding
+officer."
+
+"Anything happening?" demanded Eph, reaching deck just after the cutter
+had put off.  He eyed the marine squad curiously.
+
+"Just what we're trying to find out," replied Jack.
+
+"It must seem to you that I acted amiss in leaving the deck," put in
+Williamson.
+
+"But you didn't," retorted Jack.  "Had you been on deck you wouldn't
+have heard that infernal machine bumping against the hull."
+
+"Infernal?" echoed Eph Somers, rubbing his eyes.  "Say, have I been
+missing a whole lot by being asleep?"
+
+The other three told him quickly all they knew of what had happened.
+
+Within five minutes the cutter came back, bringing two more marines
+and a young second lieutenant of that corps.
+
+"Lieutenant Commander Kimball's compliments, sir," reported the second
+lieutenant.  "He will put in an appearance as soon as that cylinder has
+been investigated.  He has sent me with instructions to see what had best
+be done."
+
+"I don't believe there's much doubt as to what had best be done,"
+replied Captain Jack, quickly.  "Williamson reports having cut a wire
+that was attached to that cylinder.  I think we can find that wire again,
+and, if we do, we can easily follow it to its other end."
+
+"By jove, that's good enough," muttered the lieutenant.
+
+"Williamson is already wet," proposed Jack.  "He can dive again, and see
+whether he can pick up that wire.  If he needs any help, I'll go
+overboard with him."
+
+"Wait until I see what I can do," proposed the machinist.
+
+This time he dived over the port side of the craft.  Three or four times
+he came up for air, next going, below again.  At last, however,
+Williamson came up, calling:
+
+"I have a part of the wire in my hands."
+
+Lieutenant Foster ordered his marines into the cutter, inviting Jack
+and Hal also to go with him.  They rowed out alongside of Williamson,
+picking up the machinist and his wire.
+
+"We'd better put your man back on the boat, hadn't we, Mr. Benson?"
+inquired the marine lieutenant.
+
+"I'm not such weak stuff as that, sir," almost grumbled the machinist.
+"I can stand a few minutes more in wet clothes, and I want to go along to
+see where this wire leads."
+
+"Good enough," nodded Lieutenant Foster, he gave the order to row along
+slowly, while two marines in the bow of the cutter slowly gathered
+in the wire, at the same time signaling back the direction in which it
+lay.
+
+Only a few minutes were needed thus to follow the trail straight to the
+clump of bushes on shore.
+
+"Nobody leave the boat until we have a lantern ready," directed
+Lieutenant Foster.  "We don't want to tramp out the trail of the rascals
+who laid that mine."
+
+The marine lieutenant himself was the first to step ashore, and Jack
+Benson was with him.
+
+"Here are the footprints of the rascals," announced Foster, as the two
+stepped cautiously into the bushes.
+
+"Yes; there were just two of them here, apparently," replied Jack, after
+studying the prints, and discovering the marks of only two different
+sizes or kinds of shoes.
+
+"Here's the imprint of a box," added Foster.  "Good heavens, the
+scoundrels had a regular magneto battery, insulated wire and all, for
+firing that mine from the shore.  Mr. Benson, they meant to blow your
+boat into Kingdom Come!"
+
+"It looks that way," replied Jack Benson, composedly.
+
+On hearing that voice, so even and unaffected in its utterance,
+Lieutenant Foster looked at the submarine boy keenly.
+
+"By Jove, Benson, you're cool enough to be an admiral," muttered the
+marine officer, admiringly.
+
+"Why, this doesn't seem to be a joke on me," replied Captain, Jack,
+smiling back at the lieutenant.
+
+"A joke!"
+
+"It's one on the Secret Service," laughed Jack, quietly.  "They are the
+ones who are supposed to have the job of keeping off spies and all of
+their kind."
+
+"Yes; this certainly came from the spies, or their friends," muttered
+Lieutenant Foster.  "Jove, but we have a desperate crowd to deal with
+when they'll go to such a length as this in time of peace!"
+
+"Oh, it may all turn out to be a joke," put Hal, quietly.  "Some one
+may have been doing this to try us out.  That metal cylinder may prove
+to have been loaded with ginger-bread or peanuts.  If anyone has been
+trying a joke on us, then I'm mighty glad we didn't get rattled."
+
+"I reckon we shall soon know just what that cylinder did contain,"
+muttered Lieutenant Foster.  "Here's another cutter coming from the
+'Waverly,' and I think I make out Lieutenant Commander Kimball in the
+stern-sheets."
+
+It was, indeed, the lieutenant commander.  As he stepped ashore, his
+face coming into the circle of light cast by the lantern, his features
+were seen to be white with anxiety.
+
+"We have just looked into the cylinder," he announced, in a low voice.
+"We found there enough gun-cotton to blow the 'Benson' into inch pieces.
+It was a fearful crime to plan."
+
+Jack Benson and Hal Hastings heard, but did not change color.  There was
+no sense in losing nerve over a disaster that had been averted in time.
+
+"The first thing to do, of course," continued Lieutenant Commander
+Kimball, "is to send instant word to Messrs. Trotter and Packwood.
+They have a heap of work ahead of them."
+
+"As to our own boat's crew," replied Jack, "I fancy the best thing we
+can do is to go back on board, since we can't do anything here.  One of
+us will keep watch, and the rest of us can get some of a night's sleep
+yet."
+
+"Why, yes, if you youngsters can sleep, after such happenings," laughed
+Kimball.
+
+By this time Lieutenant Foster and two of his marines had followed the
+trail of footprints as far as the hard road.  Here all trace was lost.
+
+"What you want to do, Williamson," declared Jack, as soon as the
+submarine people were back on their own craft, "is to get into some
+dry clothes and make yourself a pot of hot coffee.  Then get in between
+blankets for a sleep.  I'll finish out your watch."
+
+Nor was Benson alone in his watch, for a cutter from the gunboat,
+containing a corporal and two marines, beside sailors to row the boat,
+moved slowly around the submarine at a distance of fifteen or twenty
+yards.
+
+After the rest had gone below, Captain Jack, hanging over the rail of
+the platform deck, saw other lanterns gleaming in and around the clump
+of bushes.
+
+"That must be the Secret Service people, pulled out of their comfortable
+beds," mused Benson, smiling.  "Won't they feel upset at any such
+thing happening hours after they've arrived on the spot?"
+
+After Eph Somers had reported on deck to take his watch, Jack went
+below, once more dropping into sound slumber.  The smell of coffee and
+bacon was wafted in from the galley when the young submarine captain
+next awoke.
+
+"Well," announced Eph, as Jack and Hal came forward for their breakfast,
+"Trotter and Packwood haven't caught the fellows that laid the mine."
+
+"It doesn't look strongly probable that they'll catch them, either,"
+Jack replied.  "I don't believe that the fellows who did that trick are
+any of the regular spies.  For that matter, we now of only three spies
+here who are men.  Drummond is under arrest, and so is Gaston.  Neither
+of them could have had a hand in it.  And there were two, so, if M.
+Lemaire was in it, he had an unknown accomplice.  But I don't believe
+M. Lemaire had any personal hand in laying that mine.  I've a notion
+that he considers himself entirely too high class to go into any mere
+blasting operations."
+
+"'Mere blasting operations' is good," smiled Hal Hastings, "when we
+stop to think what those 'blasting operations' might have done for us
+if it hadn't been for Williamson."
+
+"Anyone taking my name in vain?" demanded the machinist, smiling as he
+put in an appearance at that moment.
+
+"We're trying to see," Eph explained, "whether we can do any better
+guessing than the Secret Service men as to the fellows who were kind
+enough to lay that mine under us last night."
+
+"Got it figured out?" asked the machinist, as he transferred, a generous
+helping of bacon, eggs and fried potatoes, to his plate.
+
+"For myself," put in Hal, "I'd suspect that fellow Gaston, in an instant,
+if he had only been at liberty.  That fellow has an eye that looks like
+all the letters in the word 'r-e-v-e-n-g-e.'"
+
+"That's so," nodded Jack, thoughtfully, as he ate.  "But we happen to
+know that Gaston is very safe under lock and key.  By the way, fellows,
+I don't suppose Mr. Farnum and Mr. Pollard have heard the news yet, or
+they'd be out here on the double quick."
+
+After breakfast Jack went ashore alone, to carry the exciting news to
+his employers.  He found Messrs. Farnum and Pollard in the breakfast
+room at the Clayton.  Both were astounded when they heard the news of
+the night's doings.
+
+"Who on earth could have put up such a job against the submarine?"
+gasped David Pollard.
+
+"I don't know, sir," Captain Jack replied.  "But I've left Hal on
+board, in command, and I mean to find out something about this business,
+if there is any way to do it."
+
+With that he excused himself, rising and leaving the table at which his
+employers were seated.
+
+Jacob Farnum gazed after his young submarine captain, then whispered to
+the inventor:
+
+"That youngster has some notion in his head of where to look for the
+infernal criminals.  And, ten to one, his idea is a good one that will
+bear fruit!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+A BRIGHT LOOK AND A DEADLY WARNING
+
+
+Jack's employer gave him rather too much credit in supposing that the
+boy had already worked out the problem of finding those who had made
+the attack on the "Benson."
+
+As the submarine boy left the breakfast room he felt as much in the dark
+as ever.  The only known spies who were still at large, for some reason
+known only to the Secret Service men, were M. Lemaire, Mlle. Nadiboff
+and Kamanako.
+
+"This is rather earlier than either of that pair in the habit of showing
+themselves," muttered Benson, as the first two names crossed his
+thoughts.  "I wonder whether I could get the least bit of an inkling by
+going to the jail and talking with Gaston?  If I could bluff him into
+telling me anything, it might be so much gained.  I might catch him off
+his guard, if I could get him angry enough."
+
+Full of this interesting idea, the submarine boy strolled slowly along
+to the little jail, forming his plans as he went.
+
+Arrived at the jail, Captain Jack found the keeper, as yet, in ignorance
+of the dastardly attempt that had been made on the submarine boat the
+night before.  He listened, aghast, as Benson told him the whole story.
+
+"Now, I've got a notion that Gaston's crowd are very likely at the
+bottom of this whole deal," continued the submarine boy, in a low tone.
+"For one thing, while perhaps nothing much can be done to the other
+spies, this fellow, Gaston, is in here for a crime which, under the
+Florida laws, will go hard with him.  It means that he'll be locked up
+for a few years.  That may make both him and Lemaire ugly enough to put
+them up to almost any mischief.  Was M. Lemaire here to see the fellow
+yesterday?"
+
+"Lemaire has not been hero at all," replied the jailer.
+
+"Was Mlle. Nadiboff here to see him yesterday?"
+
+"No; she has been holding aloof.  With the exception of his lawyer,
+the only people who ye been here to see Gaston were two fellows who
+came yesterday, about noon."
+
+"Oho!" muttered Benson.  "Who were they?"
+
+The jailer turned to reach for a memorandum book.
+
+"I keep the names given by all who come here to see prisoners, so I
+shall be able to answer you."
+
+"Ah, here are the names.  One fellow called himself Leroux, the other
+Stephanoulis."
+
+"One name French, and the other Greek," muttered the submarine boy,
+thinking hard.  "What did they look like?"
+
+The jailer quickly and carefully described the pair.  Jack listened
+attentively.  Then rose, briskly.
+
+"Did you hear any of the conversation they had with Gaston?"
+
+"No."
+
+"If they come again to-day can you lock them up and hold them?"
+
+"If I have proper authority."
+
+"If you get a telephone message from Mr. Trotter, would that be good
+enough authority?"
+
+"Yes; on that I could hold them long enough to give Trotter a chance to
+come here and take them or else to get them committed on a regular
+warrant."
+
+"If you keep within sound of your telephone bell, then, I think you'll
+have authority within a few minutes," replied Jack, briskly.
+
+"That's a live, hustling boy," muttered the jailer, looking after
+young Benson through a window, as the submarine boy hurried away.
+
+Before he had gone far, Jack encountered one of the nondescript surreys,
+hauled by an antiquated nag and driven by a battered darkey, that often
+do duty as cab in Florida.  Poor as the rig was, it offered a chance of
+greater speed than Captain Benson could make at a walk, so he quickly
+engaged the rig and was driven to the place where the Secret Service
+men were stopping.
+
+"You've brought us the only thing like a real clue that we have,"
+declared Mr. Trotter, very frankly, after he had heard Jack's story.
+"Wait a moment, and I'll have Packwood get busy over the telephone."
+
+Within the next twenty minutes not only had the jail been telephoned
+to; Packwood also talked with all the nearby railway stations in that
+section of the country.
+
+"If those rascals can be found," declared Trotter, "I think we shall
+have gone a long way in clearing up the matter.  As you say, the fellow
+Gaston has more reason than any of the rest of the crowd to want a
+complete revenge against you."
+
+Then Mr Packwood left to walk through the little town around Spruce
+Beach, to see whether he could encounter any two worthies who answered
+to the description of Leroux and Stephanoulis.
+
+Before half-past nine, however, word came that local constables at a
+little railway town a dozen miles away had arrested a couple of suspects
+and were bringing them to Spruce Beach.  The prisoners had been taken
+while waiting for a north bound train, and had tickets all the way
+through to New York.
+
+Then Jack hastened back to Messrs. Farnum and Pollard to report what was
+in the air.
+
+"By Jupiter, Jack, I knew you had some thing strong in your mind when
+you left us," gasped the shipbuilder.  "But I didn't imagine you'd run
+down the wretches as swiftly as that."
+
+"We don't yet know that we've got the right hair," replied Captain Jack.
+
+"I'm willing to wager money on it, if it comes to that," retorted Mr.
+Farnum.
+
+Before noon the two prisoners were brought into Spruce Beach.  Trotter
+and Packwood stopped, in a 'bus with the prisoners, to show them to Jack
+at the hotel.
+
+"That pair look rascally enough to do any dirty trick," declared Jacob
+Farnum, in high disgust, as he looked over Leroux and Stephanoulis.
+
+The prisoners were, indeed, "hard hooking."  Both were men below average
+size, with sullen, defiant eyes.  Both were dressed roughly, like
+laborers.  Yet, when taken, each had been found to have a considerable
+sum of money about him.
+
+"We can't make either of the fellows talk, but maybe they will later,
+when we begin to employ some of the third degree on them," whispered
+Mr. Trotter to Jack.  "My boy, I think you've put us on the real trail.
+If the jailer identifies them as Gaston's callers of yesterday, we'll
+know where we stand."
+
+Fifteen minutes later the Secret Service men returned.  The jailer had
+pronounced the pair to be Gaston's callers of the day before.  Moreover,
+the jailer had obligingly locked up the pair until Trotter and Packwood
+could obtain proper authority for him to hold them.  Leroux and
+Stephanoulis had been placed in cells from which they could not possibly
+communicate with Gaston, whose cell lay in another wing of the jail.
+
+"As soon as that pair found that, for some reason, their mine failed to
+explode under you last night," Trotter hinted, "they knew that their
+game was up.  They hurried away and lay concealed in the distance.  Then
+they saw the party from the 'Waverly' hunting on shore, with lantern's,
+and they took to the woods.  That pair of rascals knew how risky it would
+be for them to try to leave at the local railway station today, so they
+struck off through the woods on foot making for another town at a
+distance.  The constables who brought them down here say that Leroux
+and Stephanoulis were a surely astonished pair when they found
+themselves nabbed.  We are getting into a bigger nest of trouble down
+here than we expected when we left Washington."
+
+After, the Secret Service men had gone, Jacob Farnum turned as though to
+go inside the hotel.
+
+"I'm wondering whether there are any letters for me," he said.
+
+"I'll go to the office and inquire," proposed Jack Benson.  At the desk
+he received two letters for his employer, and turned away with them in
+one hand when his steps were arrested by the sound of a sweet feminine
+voice at the further end of the desk.
+
+The speaker was Mlle. Nadiboff.
+
+"She looks as sweet and as contented as ever," thought the submarine
+boy, with some wonder.  "Really, she doesn't look as though a care had
+crossed her path."
+
+"Can you furnish me with a chauffeur, and order my car up?" Mlle.
+Nadiboff was inquiring.
+
+"I am very sorry, Mademoiselle, but we haven't a single chauffeur that
+we can spare," replied the clerk, respectfully.
+
+"Then may I rent one of your own cars, with a man to drive it?"
+
+"Again, I am very sorry, Mademoiselle, but all the hotel cars are
+engaged."
+
+The pretty Russian stamped her foot impatiently.
+
+"Oh, no matter, then," she cried.  "I will go to the garage and take
+out my own car.  I know how to manage it."
+
+"I regret very much to have to report, Mademoiselle," replied the clerk,
+speaking as respectfully as ever, "that one of the hind wheels has been
+removed from your car."
+
+Mlle. Nadiboff stared at the clerk in amazement.
+
+"Who has dared do such a thing?" she demanded, angrily.
+
+"I am sorry, but I do not know," answered the clerk.
+
+"Then I suppose it would be impossible, even, for me to hire one of your
+livery rigs?" she continued icily.
+
+"You have guessed right, Mademoiselle."
+
+"Oh, but this is insupportable!" cried the pretty Russian, turning away.
+
+As she did so, she caught sight of Jack Benson for the first time.
+
+"Oh, I would like just a word with you, my Captain," she called softly,
+moving after the boy, who had started toward the door.
+
+She overtook Jack, resting a gloved hand on his sleeve.
+
+"Do not stop," she urged, softly.  "I will keep on with you, out onto
+the veranda."
+
+In silence Jack stepped outside with her.  Mr. Farnum had vanished for
+the moment, so Benson was alone with his pretty companion.
+
+"Now, tell me, my Captain," she begged, "why it is that I cannot get
+either my own car, or any other conveyance, for a little drive?"
+
+"I could only guess, Mlle. Nadiboff, and you can do that as well as
+I," Jack replied, gravely.
+
+"But I desire you should guess for me, my Captain.  What do you say?"
+she insisted, her eyes scanning his grave face.
+
+"At the risk of seeming rude, Mademoiselle, I am not going to be prying
+enough to make any guesses about your affairs," Captain Benson answered,
+quickly.
+
+He thought he had gotten out of the matter as cleverly as it could be
+done.
+
+"Some one is taking altogether too great an interest in my affairs, my
+Captain.  I trust you have no hand in it, for it is possible that
+interference with my comfort will prove dangerous to the offenders.
+Yet, pardon me, for I am sure that you, my Captain, would not cause
+me any uneasiness.  Let those who do beware!"
+
+As she let go of his arm and turned to go inside, Mlle. Nadiboff's
+smile was bright, almost friendly.  Yet back of that smile, in her
+expressive eyes, lurked a look that made the boy start.
+
+It was a look that spoke of deadly, things, and Captain Jack Benson had
+come quite to believe that Mlle. Nadiboff could be not only quite deadly
+at need, but also equally reckless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+A FRENCH RAT IN THE CORNER
+
+
+As Mr. Farnum came around a bend in the veranda Jack hurried to him,
+handing over the letters.  Then he related the little scene he had just
+witnessed in the office, and described how Mlle. Nadiboff had walked
+out with him.
+
+"So the little minx was hinting at more mischief to come, was she?"
+demanded the shipbuilder.  "Jack, I believe she's equal to it.  Her
+crowd are anyway, if it's true that Gaston, from his cell in jail, could
+plan the attempt to blow the 'Benson' last night."
+
+Hal, too, soon came up and heard.  He turned anxious gaze upon his chum.
+
+"Jack, old fellow," he pleaded, "I know you're not much given to being
+afraid of things.  But, at least, look out for yourself a bit.  Be more
+prudent than you usually are about yourself.  That crowd of foreign
+spies, having failed and having brought themselves into trouble, mean
+to have revenge.  Any of us are liable, but you'll be the shining
+mark of all to be picked out."
+
+"There can't be many more of that crowd left at large," laughed Jack,
+lightly.
+
+"I wonder why the Secret Service men don't arrest Lemaire and the
+Nadiboff young woman?" asked Mr. Pollard, the last to rejoin the little
+group.
+
+"Trotter and Packwood must have some good reasons of their own," Jack
+replied, thoughtfully.  "For one thing, they hardly have any evidence
+that they could use against the pair."
+
+"They could at least drive them from Spruce Beach," retorted the inventor.
+
+"Perhaps the Secret Service man are giving the pair enough rope for their
+hanging," proposed Jack.
+
+At that moment the two detectives were espied going past in a buggy.
+They waved their hands to the party.  Jack replied by a signal to halt.
+He and Hal ran down to the road to speak to the detectives.
+
+"If it's a fair question to ask," demanded Hal, "what are you going to
+do with Lemaire and Mlle. Nadiboff?"
+
+"To tell you the truth, we don't know," Trotter answered.  "We haven't
+anything we could very well fasten on them.  But of this you may be
+sure; our various moves are known to them, and they're on the
+tenterhooks of anxiety wondering what's going to break loose next.  More
+than that, both are sharp enough to have guessed that it would be
+impossible for either of them to get away from Spruce Beach, now, without
+our leave.  But we'll have to leave you, now, boys.  You've been of so
+much help to us that I don't mind telling you what we're up to at this
+moment.  We're driving back to jail, and we're going to try to put the
+screws on Leroux and his Greek companion.  If we can make 'em think
+we've gained new evidence against 'em, they may get scared and begin
+to talk.  If they talk fast enough, they'll begin to tell some truth."
+
+The buggy rolled along again.
+
+"You didn't tell them a word about Mlle. Nadiboff's threats to you,"
+muttered Hal.
+
+"I didn't mean to," Jack replied, simply.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Well, for one thing, I couldn't swear that she did threaten me.  She
+may have meant it all for nonsense."
+
+"Yes," mocked Hal Hastings.  "That, would be just like her!"
+
+The submarine not being due to go out that day, the chums decided to
+remain on shore, in order to keep in touch with the march of events.
+The day was so balmy that Mr. Farnum dropped into a chair on the porch,
+Pollard occupying the chair next to him.  Hal, buying a magazine at
+the hotel news stand, sat on the edge of the porch, his feet touching
+the ground.  Jack, his mind too full of problems to permit him to
+read, paced up and down the grounds.  Finally he strolled, out past
+the gate, crossed the road and began to stroll along the shingle of
+bench.
+
+Jacob Farnum removed his cigar from between his lips long enough to
+remark:
+
+"As long as the lad keeps in sight, Pollard, it will be worth our while
+to keep an occasional eye on him."
+
+"And when he goes out of sight--? asked the inventor, slowly.
+
+"It will be high time to call him back.  Somehow, Dave, I'm growing
+uneasy over the boy.  I can't help the feeling that he's running into
+a good deal of danger that's likely to explode under him at any moment,
+just as that mine was intended to last night."
+
+"It makes one feel uncanny to be at Spruce Beach," growled the inventor,
+savagely.
+
+"Well, we can't run away," retorted Jacob Farnum, blandly.
+
+"Why not, if we feel like it?"
+
+The shipbuilder laughed.
+
+"Why, Dave, a spirited lad like Jack Benson would be furious over
+anything that looked like a retreat.  He'd be savage.  Now, Dave, we
+can hardly afford to put such a slight on the boy who has had so much
+to do with our success."
+
+"I suppose not," grunted Mr. Pollard, settling back in his chair.
+
+"The odd part of it," said Farnum, presently, "is, that while we're the
+center of an international cyclone, so to speak, the rest of the folks
+at Spruce Beach don't know a word about it.  Look at the crowds of
+folks around us who haven't even a breath of an idea of what has
+happened, or is, likely to happen.  Not a soul around here, except our
+own few, have any idea that an attempt was made, last night, to blow up
+that mysterious-looking little submarine craft riding at her moorings
+out yonder."
+
+"I wonder what the crowd would do, if it did know?" asked Pollard,
+gazing out curiously over the throngs of pleasure-seekers.  "That shows
+what a dreamer you are, Dave, and how little you know of your own fellow
+citizens.  What would the crowd do?  Why, it would change itself into
+a mob.  Mlle. Nadiboff would be hustled off out of town, Lemaire would
+be lynched, or mighty close to it, and it would be strange if the mob
+didn't march on the jail itself."
+
+"Then it would never do to let the crowd know all that's happening,
+would it?" asked Pollard.
+
+Jack, from thinking over the problems that had come up in connection
+with the spies, had at last let his attention wander to the crowds.
+Down at the beach hundreds were taking an afternoon dip.  Other hundreds
+were strolling up and down the sands.  Children were building sand
+castles or houses.  A good many small boats were out with pleasure
+parties.  Yet many, both grown-ups and children, looked positively
+bored.  They needed excitement.
+
+"How near this crowd came to having something to talk about," muttered
+young Benson to himself, with a smile.  "If that mine had gone off
+last night, no one at Spruce Beach would have felt dull to-day."
+
+Finding that the afternoon air was making him dull and inclined to gape,
+Captain Jack turned back from the beach.  He sauntered along the road,
+and was about to cross it, when he heard a sharp snap.  It was like a
+subdued shot.
+
+In the same instant a hissing sound went _pseu_! in front of his face.
+A distinct breeze, small though it was, fanned his eyes.  Then chug!
+Something landed in the trunk of the tree he was passing.
+
+"That was a shot!" guessed the submarine boy, like a flash, and in the
+next breath he muttered: "Aimed at me, too!"
+
+Jack pitched forward, falling upon his face.  If one shot had been
+fired, another might be as soon as the unknown marksman realized that
+he had missed.
+
+Several people, near by, fancied they had heard a shot, and turned,
+curiously.  Then, as soon as Benson was espied lying on the ground a
+rush was made in his direction.
+
+At that moment Hal Hastings happened to be looking over toward the beach.
+Like a flash he was up and away, his magazine falling from his lap to
+the ground.
+
+"Now, what on earth has taken Hastings off like that?" demanded Mr.
+Farnum, looking around in surprise.  "There are other people running,
+too.  Come along, Dave!"
+
+Hal shot his way through the rapidly gathering crowd.  He reached Jack
+Benson just as the latter leaped up, laughing.
+
+"Why all this excitement, just because I stubbed my toe against a
+dew-drop and fell?" demanded Benson, laughing.
+
+"Weren't you shot?" gasped Hal.
+
+"If I was, I'll make the rascal prove it," asked back Captain Jack.
+"But, now you mention it, I think the tree _was_ hit."
+
+Jack turned and looked the tree trunk over at about the height of his
+own head from the ground.
+
+"See here," he remarked, laying a finger on a small perforation in the
+bark, "I think a bullet, or something of the sort, went in here."
+
+"We'll soon find out then," proposed Hal, whipping out his jack-knife,
+opening a blade and beginning to dig.  The crowd grew in size.  Messrs.
+Farnum and Pollard had great difficulty in forcing their way through.
+
+After some time spent in patient work Hal dug out a steel-jacketed
+bullet, short and of small calibre.
+
+"You want to find the man with a weapon that bullet fits, and then make
+it warm for him," advised one man in the front rank of the crowd.
+
+"Why?" queried Captain Jack, coolly, examining the missile, then dropping
+it carelessly into his pocket.  "Some fellow fired an accidental shot,
+very likely, and is at this moment the most scared man at Spruce Beach.
+What's the use of jumping on anyone just because he had a moment of
+carelessness?"
+
+"That's right, young level-head!" nodded another man, approvingly.
+
+Messrs. Farnum and Pollard hung back somewhat.  They were near enough
+to hear and see, and they had their instant suspicions.  But the crowd
+knew nothing of the spy outrages, and it was not necessary to inform
+strangers.
+
+So, within a few minutes the crowd broke up, straying off in quest of
+something more interesting.  The submarine party kept on up to the hotel
+porch.
+
+"That was a revengeful move, pure and simple," declared Jacob Farnum, in
+a low voice.
+
+"Of course," assented Jack.  "It's going to be something of a task
+though, to find out, for certain, just who fired that shot."
+
+Even as the four stood there on the veranda a door opened, and M.
+Lemaire, faultlessly attired for an afternoon stroll, stepped out.
+
+"Ah, good afternoon, gentlemen," was his unconcerned greeting, as he
+recognized the quartette.
+
+This French spy had evidently dressed himself with a good deal of care.
+He carried himself with much precision and lightly twirled a natty cane.
+
+"Pardon me, monsieur," spoke Jack, stepping forward, and looking past
+the Frenchman; "is that one of your friends down the road?"
+
+As the Frenchman turned to look, young Benson swiftly and adroitly took
+his cane from him.
+
+Like a flash, his eyes full of fire, Lemaire heeled about, then leaped
+at the young submarine captain.
+
+But Hal Hastings stepped between them so neatly that the Frenchman
+collided with him instead.
+
+"Hold this fellow a moment, please," requested Captain Jack.  "I've found
+something interesting."
+
+Hal Hastings grabbed Lemaire's right arm.  Jacob Farnum instantly
+possessed himself of the other.  David Pollard sprang forward so that
+he could take a hand, if need be.
+
+Captain Jack stood holding the spy's walking stick, ferule end upward.
+It was a rather long, slender-looking ferrule of steel.  But what
+interested young Benson most was that he had found that the ferrule
+was hollow.
+
+Quickly the submarine boy examined the rest of the cane.
+
+"Release me!  Hand that stick back to me!" hissed the Frenchman.  "Oh,
+some one shall pay for this unpardonable outrage!"
+
+But Hal and Mr. Farnum only gripped the spy the more tightly.
+
+"I believe I've found out something," announced Jack, in a low voice.
+"Wait a second or two."
+
+He had come upon a concealed spring near the head of the cane.  Stepping
+to the edge of the porch, the submarine boy pointed the ferrule end at
+the ground, then pressed upon the spring.
+
+A sharp, though not loud report followed, and a bullet plowed into the
+ground.  There was a flash at the end of the ferrule, though but a
+barely perceptible amount of smoke.
+
+"So, M. Lemaire, you carry a pistol cane, that uses smokeless powder
+and shoots steel-jacketed bullets?" inquired Jack, turning to the
+prisoner, who, white-faced, stood gnashing hi's teeth in helpless rage.
+"I wonder if the bullet Hastings dug out of the tree trunk will be found
+to fit this weapon?"
+
+"You miser-r-r-rable dog!" screamed Lemaire.  "Thief!  Liar!"
+
+"Oh, keep cool about it, do," urged Jack, smilingly.
+
+"What's this?" demanded Trotter, suddenly appearing on the scene.
+Packwood was just behind him.
+
+Jack swiftly told what had happened, and what he had just discovered,
+at the same time passing the cane to the Secret Service man.
+
+"Lemaire, I guess you'd better come with us, for safe-keeping," advised
+Trotter, dryly.
+
+"You ar-r-rest me?" snarled the Frenchman.
+
+"Oh, yes; if you insist upon a name for it."
+
+M. Lemaire's face looked uglier than Jack had ever dreamed it possible
+for a man's face to look.  As Hal and Farnum let go his arms the spy
+took a quick step toward Jack Benson.
+
+"Stop that!" commanded Trotter, sharply, leaping to grab the spy.
+
+"I only want to say one word to this young scamp!" hissed Lemaire.
+"I will not hurt him."
+
+"You can wager he won't," added Captain Jack, clenching his fists and
+watching the other alertly.  "Let him speak to me, if he wants."
+
+Trotter thereupon halted, though he watched the Frenchman with lynx-like
+wakefulness.
+
+Lemaire, however, merely leaned forward until he had placed his lips
+close to one of the young submarine captain's ears.
+
+"See here," hissed the spy, "hold your tongue about everything, and
+make sure Gaston and myself are released.  Else, no corner of the earth
+will be a safe place for you.  You can find no place in the world where
+you will be safe from destruction--unless you get us out of this one
+bad fix!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+GALLANT, EVEN TO THE FOE!
+
+
+"You may have him now," announced Captain Jack, ironically.  "I reckon
+he has spoken his piece."
+
+Trotter's answer was to leap upon the Frenchman, pinioning his arms
+behind him.  Packwood snapped handcuffs over the prisoner's wrists.
+
+"Here is the bullet that Hastings dug out of the tree--the one that
+was probably fired at me," added Captain Jack.  "And here is M. Lemaire's
+cane-pistol.  You can see whether the bullet fits the cane."
+
+Trotter took them, with a swift, admiring look at Benson's cool, handsome
+face.
+
+Then, guiding their prisoner, the Secret Service men moved off hastily,
+for two or three hundred beach walkers had just discovered that something
+exciting had happened, and were hurrying forward.
+
+Lemaire was forced into the buggy and driven rapidly away.  Once out
+of sight the Secret Service men turned, driving straight for the local
+jail.
+
+Before anyone in the excited crowd could ask what had happened the
+submarine people had vanished.
+
+These four hurried to a room that Mr. Farnum had reserved while they
+remained at Spruce Beach.
+
+"What was it that rascally Frenchman whispered to you?" demanded the
+shipbuilder.
+
+Jack promptly repeated the threat, whereat Mr. Farnum's face grew
+decidedly grave.
+
+"The worst of it is, Jack, I think the fellow not only meant the threat,
+but has the connections necessary to carry it out," said the ship
+builder, slowly.  "I am quite prepared to believe that these spies
+work in large groups, when necessary.  I am beginning to think that
+it will be wise move to get you way from here--in time."
+
+"That would give Gaston a fine chance to go clear," retorted young
+Benson.  "I am a very important witness when his case comes up."
+
+"You are also a very important young man for our submarine company,"
+replied Jacob Farnum, "so important, in fact, that I don't want to
+have you put out of this world through any of their plots for revenge."
+
+"But don't you see, sir, that, if I run away from here, the fellow
+Gaston is very likely to be liberated?"
+
+"Let him go, then," urged Mr. Farnum, though it was plain that he spoke
+reluctantly.
+
+"It's just what I won't do, sir.  I wouldn't be a good citizen if I
+should allow a criminal to escape justice just because I was, afraid
+to stay and testify against him," argued Captain Jack.
+
+"I admit the force of all you say," assented Mr. Farnum, slowly.  "Yet,
+if I should find, after thinking it all over, that it will be best to
+instruct you to leave here quietly, you won't refuse to obey, will you?"
+
+"Yes," declared Jack Benson.
+
+"What?  It would be the first time you ever balked at orders, then."
+
+"But this is different, Mr. Farnum.  I refuse to obey any order that will
+tend to defeat the ends of justice."
+
+Jacob Farnum winced at that statement of the matter.  He had been
+anxious only to save Jack from the attempts of a dangerous crowd.
+
+"Jack is right," broke in David Pollard, decisively.
+
+"When he puts the case in that way, I don't dare say that he isn't,"
+admitted the shipbuilder.  "At the same time, I can't bear the thought
+of the lad being butchered to gratify the grudge of any of the rascally
+crew that we've offended here at Spruce Beach."
+
+A slight, rustling sound at the door caused them all to wheel about.
+Jacob Farnum's eyes beheld a slip of white paper lying on the floor,
+just inside the door.  Jack Benson saw it, also, but he sprang past
+the paper, pulling the door open.
+
+Around a turn in the corridor the submarine boy heard the sound of
+fleet footsteps.
+
+Jack pursued, but could find no one, and the sound of moving feet had
+also ceased.  As soon as he was satisfied that he could not catch the
+prowler, the submarine boy returned to the room.
+
+"Do you see this?" asked the shipbuilder, holding out the slip of paper.
+
+"Another warning, I suppose?" Benson ventured.
+
+"Yes; and it shows that you are being followed and watched.  Something
+worse is almost certain yet to happen."
+
+Jack took the slip of paper, reading these printed words:
+
+"You have been fairly warned.  Are you going to be a fool?  Obey,
+or--"
+
+That was all.  The meaning of the words was plain enough, but Jack, with
+as cool a smile as ever, folded the slip, dropping it in one of his
+pockets.
+
+"This will interest Trotter," he remarked.
+
+"There is no use whatever in advising you, suppose?" asked the
+shipbuilder.
+
+"If these threats were directed against you, would you cringe from
+them?" demanded the young submarine captain.
+
+"Of course I wouldn't," replied Farnum, a sudden flash lighting his eyes
+as he spoke.
+
+"Then why should you expect to see me turn coward?"
+
+"I won't say another word about it, Jack!" replied the shipbuilder,
+gripping his captain's hand.  "I have dreaded to see you go down under
+the mysterious assaults of these scoundrels.  I have hated to see a boy
+come to that harm while serving me.  But  I realize, now, that it would
+hurt you worse to run away than it would to stay and face any kind of
+punishment or even death itself."
+
+"That's the talk, sir," nodded Hal.  "And no one is going to harm him,
+either.  There are too many of us--if we keep our eyes open."
+
+That "if" covered a wide field of possibilities.  Not one of them could
+foresee all that the ingenuity of the enemy would provide in the way of
+danger.
+
+To quiet his own agitation Jacob Farnum had recourse to a cigar.  He
+lighted it, smoking with a very solemn look on his face.
+
+"What's all the excitement, I wonder?" muttered Hal, presently.
+
+The distant sound of running feet, then cries came to their ears,
+though none in the little party could distinguish the words.
+
+"There's some big excitement on.  Come along," urged Jack, reaching
+for his cap.
+
+"Humph!  We've had excitement enough to last reasonable people for a long
+time," grumbled the shipbuilder, but he, too, sprang for his hat.
+
+Ere they had run far through the corridor they encountered other guests
+fleeing.
+
+"What's the matter?" called Jack.
+
+"Fire in the south wing," called back one man.  "We don't know, yet,
+whether the hotel is doomed."
+
+Just then the fire alarm bell of the hotel began to sound loudly in all
+the corridors.
+
+That brought the remaining guests on the run, some appearing not
+completely dressed.
+
+As the rushing throng began to thicken at a door on the ground floor
+the sound of a whistled of clanging gongs was heard without.  The
+Spruce Beach fire department was responding to the alarm.
+
+Captain Jack bounded out.  Hal kept close at his chum's heels while
+Messrs. Farnum and Pollard came along less fleetly.
+
+Through half a dozen windows on the second floor of the south wing
+flames now leaped, while the smoke curled up in dense clouds.  This
+wing was built wholly of wood, and was doomed, even though the rest of
+the hotel could be saved.
+
+Jack halted, at last, Hal bumping into him.
+
+Some of the firemen were hauling hose from a cart, while others were
+attaching an end of one length to a fireplug.  A hook and ladder truck
+was hauled to the scene, its crew standing by ready at need.
+
+Whish!  Two four-inch streams struck the flames, yet seemed only to
+feed them to greater fury.
+
+"We can't put that blaze out, men!" roared the local fire chief.  "Turn
+the streams against the main building and stop the blaze from spreading.
+Let the axe crew follow me!"
+
+Swiftly a couple of long ladders were unlimbered and placed close to
+the main building.  The fire chief and his men scaled these with
+agility and tried to fight their way into the rear of the blaze.
+
+Jack stood scanning the windows on the third floor, just above the
+present belt of fire.  Then, through one of the windows on the upper
+floor he saw a sudden red glow thrust its way.
+
+"The fire is eating through to the top," he turned to explain to Messrs.
+Farnum and Pollard, who had just reached the boys.
+
+"I think they'll save the main building, however," returned Mr. Farnum,
+as the ringing sound of ax-blows reached them and the heavy streams of
+water were carried after the wielders of the axes.
+
+"I hope everybody is out, up there in the wing," uttered Hal, glancing
+in that direction.
+
+As if in answer a window was suddenly raised with frantic haste.
+
+A face, a figure appeared there, framed by the sill and sides.  Then
+a red tongue of flame shot up in the background, illumining the face
+of a terrified woman.
+
+"Why, it's Mlle. Nadiboff!" gasped Jack Benson.
+
+The pretty Russian shouted down appealingly, though her words were
+drowned by the crackling of the blaze and the lusty strokes of the
+fire fighters.
+
+"Quick!  We must get a ladder up there!" shouted Jack, turning back to
+the truck.  "We can't let a human being be burned before our eyes."
+
+But there were no firemen at hand.  They had followed their chief.
+Hundreds of citizens stood about, but they needed a leader.
+
+"Come on, men!" roared Jack.  "Help me off with this longest ladder."
+
+A dozen pair of hands reached for it at once.  Off came the ladder with
+a bound, while other men pressed up to aid.
+
+"Right up to the sill of the window where that woman is!" shouted young
+Captain Benson.  Up went the ladder, exactly in place, while a score
+of voices shouted:
+
+"Get out on the ladder and come down, young lady!  Can you?"
+
+As if in answer, Mlle. Nadiboff was seen suddenly to reel backward as
+though overcome by the smoke that poured up at her from the floor below.
+
+"Where are you going?" shouted Jacob Farnum, hoarsely, as the submarine
+captain threw off his jacket like a flash.
+
+"Up there--of course--to help her!" Jack shouted back at him, as he
+leaped at the rungs.
+
+"It's the only thing a man can do," admitted Farnum, hoarsely.  "Good
+luck to you, Jack!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+"GOOD-BYE, MY CAPTAIN!"
+
+
+The first part of the climb was easy.
+
+Unmindful of the cheers that followed the submarine boy raced up the
+ladder.
+
+Then he struck the belt of heavy smoke.  Flames, too, leaped out at him.
+He went through that zone of red with all possible speed, yet swift as
+he was, he felt as though he were being roasted.
+
+Then, at a greater height, the boy was forced to close his mouth, barely
+breathing, for the smoke surrounded him.  He felt as though he were
+stifling, but he kept on.
+
+Up on the sill the watching crowd below saw him.  Then Jack Benson leaped
+inside.
+
+Ah!  He could breathe, here, just a bit more, though the smoke had
+followed him.
+
+At the further end of the room, by the door that opened upon the
+corridor, the flames were eating their way up through from the floor
+below.  There was a red barrier there that shut off any hope of retreat
+by the corridor.
+
+Yet these things Jack Benson saw only as his gaze swiftly swept the
+room.
+
+Mlle. Nadiboff lay in an unmoving, unconscious heap on the floor, some
+ten feet back from the window.  She was in evening dress, as though
+prepared to descend to dinner.
+
+"She can't go through the line of fire in that rig," muttered Jack, even
+while his head reeled from the weight of smoke on his lungs.
+
+Furiously he sprang at the bed, snatching off the blankets.  These he
+threw on the floor, rolling the Russian woman up in them.
+
+Then he bent over to lift her.  Ordinarily he could have performed the
+task with ease, for his young arms were strong.  But now, three-quarters
+strangled by the smoke he had inhaled, Jack fairly tottered, with the
+insensible human form in his arms, back to the window:
+
+As he stepped out upon the ladder Jack vaguely heard the cheers that
+volleyed up at him.
+
+To most of those below it looked as though he were moving easily.  But
+Hal, waiting on the rungs of the ladder, just below the fearful belt
+of smoke and flames, saw differently at a glance.
+
+Holding firmly to his burden, Jack started down carefully, but as swiftly
+as his quaking knees would permit.
+
+"Come along!  Steady with you!" bellowed up Hal Hastings, as he fought
+his way up to his chum.
+
+An instant later Hal growled out
+
+"Let her go.  I have her--safe!"
+
+Hal was just above the smoke belt, and his own head was reeling, now.
+Tongues of flame leaped out at them all.  Speed alone could save them
+from one of the most painful of deaths.
+
+Down through the belt they moved.  As they neared the ground willing
+hands reached out to catch them.
+
+"Pull those blankets off the girl!  They're afire," shouted one man,
+and was obeyed.  Mlle. Nadiboff, after the blankets had been stripped
+away, was carried off, still unconscious though safe as far as fire was
+concerned.
+
+The clothing of both the submarine boys had caught and was smouldering.
+Both Jack and Hal submitted to being thrown on the ground and rolled
+until the last spark had been extinguished.
+
+"Bring milk--a lot of it, for these young men," ordered a physician who
+stood in the crowd.  For Jack and Hal, on their feet again, leaned
+almost helplessly against Farnum and Pollard.  Their lungs were so
+filled with smoke that both boys felt as though they could never breathe
+again.
+
+When the milk was brought, however, and forced down their throats under
+the doctor's orders, they found that this somewhat oily fluid brought
+back a good deal of the missing power to breathe.  After a while both
+boys began to move about again.  Yet both felt a strange feeling of
+oppression and weakness.
+
+"For the rest, your feelings will simply have to wear off," the
+physician told them.  "You'll be all right in time.  And it was a fine,
+manly piece of work that you both did."
+
+After nearly an hour of stubborn work the firemen saved the main
+building, though that southern wing was practically destroyed.
+
+When the danger was over hotel discipline asserted itself once more.
+News was passed that the belated dinner was ready, and the lately
+excited guests filed in for their meal, though many complained of a
+loss of appetite.
+
+Neither Jack nor Hal felt like eating then.  They sat by Messrs. Farnum
+and Pollard, though the submarine boys contented themselves with sipping
+more milk.
+
+"That was one way of answering the enemy's threats," laughed the
+shipbuilder, in an undertone.
+
+"We don't know that Mlle. Nadiboff was in any way connected with the
+threats," replied Jack, in an equally low tone.
+
+"She belongs in the enemy's ranks," observed David Pollard, dryly.
+
+As the quartette were leaving the table one of the negro waiters stepped
+up to them.
+
+"De lady dat was brought down outah de fiah done wanter see Marse Benson
+in de parlor," announced the waiter.
+
+"Mlle. Nadiboff?" inquired Mr. Farnum.  "Then I guess we had all better
+go in Jack, I'm going to keep you in my sight."
+
+As they entered the parlor the submarine people saw three or four women
+standing about a sofa on which lay the pretty Russian.
+
+At sight of the newcomers the Russian signed to the attendants of her
+own sex to raise her, and then to withdraw.  Jack went forward to the
+sofa, his friends taking seats on the opposite side of the room.
+
+"Pardon my not rising, my Captain," begged Mlle. Nadiboff, as Jack
+Benson left his friends to go forward and greet her.  "I find I have
+not my full strength yet."
+
+Since she offered her hand, Jack, under the circumstances, took it
+simply, then released it.  He stood before her in the uniform that had
+suffered in the fire.
+
+"I am told that you, my Captain, nearly lost your own life in saving
+my less than worthless one," continued the Russian woman.  "It was a
+strange thing for you to--considering.  Will you believe me when I
+tell you that I greatly respect your courage and your manhood?"
+
+"Yes," bowed Jack.  "Though it was nothing but a sailor's easy trick."
+
+"You would make little of it, would you, my Captain?" smiled Mlle.
+Nadiboff, plaintively.  "True, you risked much for a life that has
+been worth but little.  Still, I sent for you to do more than assure
+you of my appreciation of your generosity."
+
+As she spoke, the young woman thrust one hand into the bosom of her
+dress.  She drew out a little envelope which she held in her hand for
+a few moments.
+
+"You have been threatened, my Captain?" she whispered, looking up at
+him.
+
+"Oh, ye-es," assented Captain Jack Benson, shrugging his shoulders.
+
+"And by very desperate people."
+
+"So far," smiled the boy, "they have injured only themselves."
+
+"Yet you do not know how far their vengeance can reach."
+
+"Nor shall I lose any sleep thinking over it," Captain Jack replied,
+looking down at her with his baffling smile.
+
+"Your enemies had one trick prepared for you," whispered the Russian,
+"that you might have found it hard to meet."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Of course you do not suspect it, but we have even one of the waiters
+here--a worthless, reckless black--in our pay."
+
+"It may have been he who thrust the paper under our door before--before
+the fire?" ventured Jack.
+
+"It was," nodded Mlle. Nadiboff, seriously.  "And it was the same
+waiter who, on receiving this envelope from me, would have mixed the
+contents with the next cup of coffee served you in the dining room of
+this hotel.  But I am overcome by your generosity, my Captain.  Take
+this envelope--and do not place what it contains in your coffee."
+
+Though Jack Benson may have started inwardly, his hand did not tremble
+in the least as he reached out and took the envelope, which he dropped
+into one of his pockets.
+
+"Thank you, Mademoiselle," he said, simply.
+
+"There is nothing about me, my Captain, that you can admire," spoke the
+Russian woman, sadly.  "I have not led the right kind of life.  But I
+have just that grain of good in me that enables me to admire one as
+fine and manly as I have found you to be.  You have given me my
+life--a worthless one, at best.  So I give you your life--and may you
+make as splendid use of it as you have started out to do.  And now,
+good-bye, my Captain.  You cannot continue to know such as I."
+
+Despite what he knew of this dangerous woman, Jack Benson felt himself
+touched.
+
+"What is going to become of you, Mademoiselle?" he asked.  "Will you
+be dragged down in the snares that have entrapped your confederates!"
+
+"I do not know.  How could I know?" she asked, looking quickly up at
+him.  "Yet, if my accomplices escape, and find that I have served you,
+my Captain, do you know the forfeit they will exact?"
+
+"Your life?" whispered Benson.
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Then, if I can, I am going to help you to escape them," promised the
+submarine boy.  "Yet that can happen only on your most solemn
+word--given, pardon me, in a moment of absolute honesty--that you will
+never again play the spy, for the secrets of the United States
+Government."
+
+"Oh, I will promise that," replied Mlle. Nadiboff, quickly.  "Yet I
+hardly need to.  After what I have done, just now, no one in my
+peculiar line of work would ever trust me again.  I shall be shunned,
+hereafter, if not destroyed, by those who have worked with me."
+
+"I shall do my best to get you safely away from Spruce Beach," promised
+Jack Benson.  "Have you more to say to me, Mademoiselle?"
+
+"Nothing, but good-bye, my Captain."
+
+She held out her hand.  Once more Jack took it, bending low over it.
+Tears shone in her eyes, but Jack did not see them, for he turned,
+going back to his friends.
+
+Not until they were well away from the parlor did Jack Benson offer any
+account of the interview that had just taken place.
+
+"Let me have that envelope, then," requested Jacob Farnum, gravely.
+
+"What are you going to do with it, sir?" Jack asked, as he passed it
+over.
+
+"Do with it?" repeated his employer.  "I'm going to take it to the
+nearest druggist, and find out what the stuff is."
+
+"We'd better take this latest news to our friend Trotter," suggested
+David Pollard.
+
+"By all means," nodded Farnum.  "And I'll meet the rest of you there."
+
+The little house wherein the Secret Service, men had taken up their
+headquarters was not far away.  When the inventor and the submarine boys
+rang the bell Mr. Packwood admitted them.
+
+"Step right into the next room," advised Mr. Packwood.  "You'll find some
+one there you know."
+
+A the submarine folks entered the room they saw Trotter seated at a
+table on which were writing materials.  At the other side of the table
+standing very erect, and in a very respectful pose, was the Japanese,
+Kamanako.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+"Good evening, honorable gentlemen," said the Japanese, turning when he
+heard the new arrivals entering.
+
+"Mr. Kamanako is going to leave us," announced Trotter, with a smile.
+"He goes north to-night.  Here is the slip of paper, my boy, that will
+take you past any meddlesome inquiry.  But it is good only until
+midnight, so I advise you to be sure to catch to-night's express."
+
+"I shall, and thank you, honorable sir," replied the Japanese, bowing.
+
+"Then I won't detain you any longer, or you may miss your train."
+
+Once more the Japanese bowed, then turned to Captain Jack Benson.
+
+"Honorable Captain," he said, "I had pleasure to show you something
+about jiu-jitsu.  You did me honor to show me most excellent thing
+you called American strategy.  I shall not forget it."
+
+With bows to the others Kamanako quickly took his leave.
+
+"We had nothing very strong on which we could hold that fellow, so we
+had to let him go," declared Mr. Trotter, after the outer door had
+closed.  Then he added, with a sigh: "That's the worst of catching spies,
+under such laws as we have in this country.  Rarely are we able to
+punish them as they deserve."
+
+"He won't come back, will he?" asked Jack.
+
+"Not for a while, anyway.  We have made the fellow nervous, and he will
+give us a wide berth for a considerable time."
+
+"Why don't you hit all these people the hardest kind of a blow?" demanded
+young Benson.
+
+"I wish I knew how to," sighed Trotter.
+
+"Then spoil them with too much publicity," proposed the submarine
+captain.  "Let the whole country know all about them and their records,
+and just how they look."
+
+"If I could!  But how am I to do it?"
+
+"Why, there's a writer here at Spruce Beach," Jack continued; "a man
+named Hennessy.  Let him write all the facts of this whole story, or
+such of the facts as you want made public.  Let Hennessy have the
+photographs of this spy crew.  He can print the yarn in his newspaper
+and in some magazine, and can use all the photos.  Then these people
+will find themselves so well known that about all of them value as spies
+will be gone."
+
+"By Jove, but that's a clear-headed idea," muttered Trotter, rising from
+his chair.  "It will do the trick, too.  Where is this man, Hennessy?"
+
+"Stopping at the Clayton, sir."
+
+"Packwood, will you go over and get that reporter?" asked Mr. Trotter,
+turning to his associate.
+
+In the next minute Jack was telling Trotter of the fire-incident and the
+envelope that Mlle. Nadiboff had given him.  By the time the submarine
+boy had finished his recital Jacob Farnum hurried in.
+
+"That stuff," he reported, "is morphine sulphate, and the druggist says
+there was enough of it to take you clear out of this world and into the
+next."
+
+"Hm!  That Nadiboff woman!" muttered Trotter.  "She has been as dangerous
+as any of them, and yet it is hard to be rough with her after her one
+act of gratitude to you, Benson.  I could see that she went north on
+the train, of course, but she'd be liable to suspicion and punishment
+by some of the members of the gang of that infernal Gaston.  He has yet
+other men, I suspect, who may be watching the trains further on, and
+Mlle. Nadiboff, after saving you, Benson, from their latest death trap,
+might run right into their vengeance.  She ought to be gotten away from
+here by some other means."
+
+"She can be--by ship," hinted Jack, quietly.
+
+"Let me see," mused Trotter.  "Yes; that can be done, if you want to
+take some trouble.  At about eleven to-night the Savannah freight
+steamer, bound for Havana, will pass by about a dozen miles out.  You
+could pick her up by watching for her searchlight.  Do you feel like
+sending Nadiboff to Cuba, in that fashion?"
+
+"If it suits her, we'll do it," Jack replied quickly enough.
+
+"It may be very bad for her if it doesn't suit her," replied Trotter,
+grimly.  "Well, hurry along and see if you can do it.  Drummond and
+Miss Peddensen are going north to-night, also."
+
+As the submarine party left the house they met Packwood and Hennessy
+coming along.
+
+"I think you'll get as good a news story as you can want to-night," said
+Jack to the reporter.  "You remember, Mr. Farnum promised you one before
+the tip was given to any other reporter."
+
+Hennessy expressed his, thanks warmly, and the quartette hastened on to
+the hotel.  Captain Jack had little difficulty in seeing Mlle. Nadiboff
+in the parlor.  When he explained to her the plan, she gladly accepted.
+
+"You will not believe me, my Captain," she smiled, wearily, "but I am
+wholly through with spying.  I shall never again disgrace my womanhood
+in that way."
+
+Owing to the fire Mlle. Nadiboff was not burdened with baggage.  She
+carried her evening dress in a new dress suit case bought by Hal at one
+of the stores.  In going away she wore a plain gray dress and dark
+brown jacket purchased from one of the maids at the hotel.  Mlle.
+Nadiboff's jewelry and money, with which she was well supplied, had been
+in the hotel safe, so that she left with the means of pursuing her
+journey in comfort.
+
+"It is a whim of mine, my Captain," cried the Russian, gayly, as they
+left the hotel, "but will you give me your arm down to the shore?"
+
+"Gladly," Jack agreed.
+
+They took a shore boat and went out to the "Benson."  While Captain
+Jack helped the pretty visitor aboard Hal hastened below to bring her
+up a chair.
+
+"You have your wish, at last, Mademoiselle, to visit this craft," Jack
+laughed, then added, gravely: "I am sorry, indeed, that I cannot invite
+you below."
+
+"I have lost my desire to see the interior of the boat," she replied,
+with equal gravity.
+
+A start was made in plenty of time.  Gayly the "Benson" bounded out over
+the waves, as though even that grim little steel craft of war could
+appreciate the fact that its dangers were over.
+
+In time Captain Jack picked up the Havana bound freighter by the rays of
+her searchlight, and moved on out to intercept her.  He signaled that
+he had a passenger to put aboard.  The steamship lay to, lowering a
+side gangway, and the "Benson" ran neatly in.  The transfer was made.
+
+Just as she was helped over the side Mlle. Nadiboff placed her hand in
+Jack's.
+
+"Good-bye, my Captain," she said, sadly.
+
+"Good-bye, Mademoiselle," answered the submarine boy.  "And remember that
+you are done with the spies."
+
+"Forever!  Again, good-bye, my Captain."
+
+As both craft moved off on their respective courses Captain Benson saw a
+little white handkerchief fluttering at the freighter's stern rail.  As
+long as it could be visible over the waters that handkerchief fluttered.
+"I guess the little Russian must have tied her handkerchief there,"
+observed Eph, dryly, and Captain Jack smiled; while Jacob Farnum turned
+to whisper to the inventor:
+
+"Dave, our youthful captain has the greatest respect in the world for
+a woman, but he'll never be made a fool of by one of the wrong kind."
+
+Henceforth, as long as she remained at Spruce Beach, the submarine
+craft was wholly unmolested and avoided by spies.  Gaston, who turned
+out to be the real leader of one party, instead of M. Lemaire, was
+sentenced to prison for assault.  Leroux and his Greek accomplice
+confessed to the attempt to explode the mine under the "Benson," and
+were sent to the penitentiary.  There, also, journeyed M. Lemaire,
+for a long term, on account of his all but successful shot at Jack
+Benson.
+
+With the exception of those sent to prison none of the spies have as
+yet been heard from.
+
+For a considerable time the "Benson" remained at, or near, Spruce Beach.
+Hennessy's articles attracted great attention to the craft.  The Navy
+people were charmed by the new capabilities shown by this latest of the
+Pollard submarine boats.
+
+Later the submarine boys were destined to turn their attention to new
+and thrilling work with submarine craft And now came most stirring
+times that put their grit, intelligence and resource to the hardest
+kind of tests.
+
+These newest happenings will be related in full in the next volume
+of this series, which will appear under the title: "_The Submarine
+Boys' Lightning Cruise; Or, The Young Kings of the Deep._"  The reader
+of this new volume will find a rare treat in store for him!
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SUBMARINE BOYS AND THE SPIES***
+
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