aw! The view of my Government was that England was blockaded, food
contraband, and vessels carrying it to be destroyed. The lawyers could
argue about it afterwards. My business was to starve the enemy any way I
could. Within an hour the three ships were under the waves and the
_Iota_ was streaming down the Picardy coast, looking for fresh victims.
The Channel was covered with English torpedo-boats buzzing and whirling
like a cloud of midges. How they thought they could hurt me I cannot
imagine, unless by accident I were to come up underneath one of them.
More dangerous were the aeroplanes which circled here and there.

The water being calm, I had several times to descend as deep as a hundred
feet before I was sure that I was out of their sight. After I had blown
up the three ships at Boulogne I saw two aeroplanes flying down Channel,
and I knew that they would head off any vessels which were coming up.
There was one very large white steamer lying off Havre, but she steamed
west before I could reach her. I dare say Stephan or one of the others
would get her before long. But those infernal aeroplanes spoiled our
sport for that day. Not another steamer did I see, save the never-ending
torpedo-boats. I consoled myself with the reflection, however, that no
food was passing me on its way to London. That was what I was there for,
after all. If I could do it without spending my torpedoes, all the
better. Up to date I had fired ten of them and sunk nine steamers, so I
had not wasted my weapons. That night I came back to the Kent coast and
lay upon the bottom in shallow water near Dungeness.

We were all trimmed and ready at the first break of day, for I expected
to catch some ships which had tried to make the Thames in the darkness
and had miscalculated their time. Sure enough, there was a great steamer
coming up Channel and flying the American flag. It was all the same to
me what flag she flew so long as she was engaged in conveying contraband
of war to the British Isles. There were no torpedo-boats about at the
moment, so I ran out on the surface and fired a shot across her bows. She
seemed inclined to go on so I put a second one just above her water-line
on her port bow. She stopped then and a very angry man began to
gesticulate from the bridge. I ran the _Iota_ almost alongside.

"Are you the captain?" I asked.

"What the--" I won't attempt to reproduce his language.

"You have food-stuffs on board?" I