pper at
the outset, and----?"

Evidently figuring it would be best not to let me pile up too big a lead
of questions for him to answer, the captain sat down resignedly and took
up the thread of the story at somewhere near the beginning.

"How did we manage to slip up on her?" he repeated. "Well, principally,
I should say, because she was 'preoccupied.' I told you last night that
I used to get away for a bit of tiger shooting while I was on Eastern
stations, and you mentioned that you'd had a go at it yourself now and
then. So we both have probably picked up a smattering of the ways of
tigers. Now I've always maintained that the fact that I had given a bit
of study to the ways of man-eaters was a big help to me in understanding
the ways of Huns. A hungry tiger, on the prowl for something to devour,
is about the hardest brute in the world to stalk successfully; while, on
the other hand, one that has made its kill and is sating its bloody
lust upon it is just about the easiest. It's just the same with a
U-boat. The one best chance we have of surprising one on the surface is
while it is in the act of sinking a merchantman by bombs or shell-fire,
or just after the victim has been torpedoed and the pirate is
standing-by to fire on the boats and pick up any officers it may think
worth while to take prisoner. That was what was responsible for the luck
that befell me in the instance in question. The U.C.--a day or two
previously to the one on which she was slated to meet her finish, had
sunk the British merchantman _Hilda Bronson_, and carried off as
prisoners the captain and mate. These men, after we rescued them, were
able to give us some account of how their hosts spent the morning of the
day on which they encountered the _Flash_. Their general practice, of
course, was to submerge in the daytime and run on the surface, charging
batteries, during the night. Emboldened by two or three recent successes
in sinking small merchantmen by gun-fire and bombs, they appeared to
have become very contemptuous of our anti-submarine measures, and
declared that they were just as safe on the surface in the daytime as at
night. Bearing out the probability that these words were by no means
spoken in jest, is the fact that they did not dive at daybreak, but
continued to cruise on the surface on the look out for unarmed ships
which could be safely sunk without risking the loss of a torpedo or
damage to themselves by gun-fire. This class of ships