ine-room.'

There were a few more scattering rifle shots, but the officers on the
transport soon stopped that. The transport herself, with her rudder in
rags, was out of all control. Her engines were stopped, and she lay
sullenly waiting for her saucy little enemy.

Strang gave a sigh of relief.

'Glad they had the sense to shut up,' he said to Ken. 'If they'd gone on
shooting I should have had to sock it into them, and I didn't want to
break my promise to your old Pacha.'

The submarine, smartly handled as usual, glided up close under the tall
side of the transport, and Strang hailed her in French.

A black-browed officer, with angry eyes, came to the rail, and answered in
the same language.

'You have British and French prisoners aboard,' said Strang sharply. 'You
will be good enough to put them all into a boat and send them across.'

'And if I refuse?' retorted the other.

'I shall shell you until you think better of it,' was the calm reply.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'We surrender,' he said.

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

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

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

'Not yet, sir,' Ken answ