destruction! After much talk we decided that the best plan would be
that I should dispatch a cipher telegram next morning from a French port
to tell them to send the four second-rate boats to cruise off the North
of Ireland and West of Scotland. Then when I had done this I should move
down Channel with Stephan and operate at the mouth, while the other two
boats could work in the Irish Sea. Having made these plans, I set off
across the Channel in the early morning, reaching the small village of
Etretat, in Brittany. There I got off my telegram and then laid my
course for Falmouth, passing under the keels of two British cruisers
which were making eagerly for Etretat, having heard by wireless that we
were there.

Half-way down Channel we had trouble with a short circuit in our electric
engines, and were compelled to run on the surface for several hours while
we replaced one of the cam-shafts and renewed some washers. It was a
ticklish time, for had a torpedo-boat come upon us we could not have
dived. The perfect submarine of the future will surely have some
alternative engines for such an emergency. However by the skill of
Engineer Morro, we got things going once more. All the time we lay there
I saw a hydroplane floating between us and the British coast. I can
understand how a mouse feels when it is in a tuft of grass and sees a
hawk high up in the heavens. However, all went well; the mouse became a
water-rat, it wagged its tail in derision at the poor blind old hawk, and
it dived down into a nice safe green, quiet world where there was nothing
to injure it.

It was on the Wednesday night that the _Iota_ crossed to Etretat. It was
Friday afternoon before we had reached our new cruising ground. Only one
large steamer did I see upon our way. The terror we had caused had
cleared the Channel. This big boat had a clever captain on board. His
tactics were excellent and took him in safety to the Thames. He came
zigzagging up Channel at twenty-five knots, shooting off from his course
at all sorts of unexpected angles. With our slow pace we could not catch
him, nor could we calculate his line so as to cut him off. Of course, he
had never seen us, but he judged, and judged rightly, that wherever we
were those were the tactics by which he had the best chance of getting
past. He deserved his success.

But, of course, it is only in a wide Channel that such things can be
done. Had I met him in the mouth of the Tha