Chapter LII

On the very day the Narcissus left Galveston the German submersible V-l4 left her base at Zeebrugge, with oil and torpedoes sufficient to last her on an ordinary three weeks' cruise, and promptly headed for that section of the Atlantic where information and belief told her commander the hunting would be good. And it was--so good, in fact, that to the very great disgust of her crew she had just two torpedoes in stock when the man on watch at her periscope reported a large freight steamer to the west. Promptly the V-l4 submerged and proceeded on a course calculated to intercept the freighter, which presently was discovered to be the U.S.S. Narcissus.

The captain of the V-l4 almost licked his chops. He had heard of the Narcissus. The neutrality laws of the United States had prevented him from hearing of her by wireless when she cleared from Galveston, but he had been on the lookout for her, just the same, ever since a Dutch steamer from New York, with an alert German chief mate, had touched at Copenhagen, from which point the dispatches that mate carried had gone underground straight to the office of the German Admiralty. The information anent the Narcissus had been brief but illuminating: She had been chartered to carry horses for the British Government from Galveston to Le Havre, and the word to get her at all hazards had been passed to the submarine flotilla.

Captain Emil Bechtel, of the V-l4, did not possess an Iron Cross of any nature whatsoever, and as he studied the oncoming Narcissus through the periscope he reflected that this big brute of a boat would bring him one, provided he was lucky. He remembered he had but two torpedoes left, and under the circumstances he paused to consider.

Clearly--since the Narcissus was laden with horses and mules for the enemy she was carrying contraband--she must not escape. On the other hand, there had been a deal of unpleasantness of late because President Wilson had been protesting the sinking of vessels without warning--and the Narcissus was a United States steamer. Consequently if he torpedoed her without warning the temperamental Kaiser might make of Captain Emil Bechtel what is colloquially known as the goat; whereas, on the other hand, should he conform to international law and place her crew in safety before sinking her, there was a chance that her wireless might summon a patrol boat to the vicinity--Bechtel had sighted one less than an hour before--and patrol boats had a miserable habit, when they sighted a periscope, of shooting it to pieces.

Then, too, it was just possible that the perfidious English had mounted a couple of six-inch guns on her after getting to sea--and the German knew a six-inch shell, well-placed, would send his vessel to the bottom. Moreover, it was sunset; in half an hour it would be twilight; he had no knowledge of the speed of the Narcissus and she might try to make a run for it, thus forcing him to come to the surface and shell