ich served as workshop and dwelling-place of the
officers of the flotilla, Madame de Wissant for a few moments stood
solitary, and looked musingly down into the waters of the bay.

Each submarine, its long, fish-like shape lying prone in the almost
still, transparent water, differed not only in size, but in make, from
its fellows, and no two conning towers even were alike.

Lying apart, as if sulking in a corner, was an example of the old
"Gymnote" type of under-sea boat. She went by the name of the _Carp_,
and she was very squat, small and ugly, her telescopic conning tower
being of hard canvas.

To Claire, the _Carp_ always recalled an old Breton woman she had known
as a girl. That woman had given thirteen sons to France, and of the
thirteen five had died while serving with the colours--three at sea and
two in Tonkin--and a grateful country had given her a pension of ten
francs a week, two francs for each dead son.

Like that Breton woman, the ugly, sturdy little _Carp_ had borne heroes
in her womb, and like her, too, she had paid terrible toll of her sons
to death.

Occasionally, but very seldom now, the _Carp_ was taken out to sea, and
the men, strange to say, liked being in her, for they regarded her as a
lucky boat; she had never had what they called a serious accident.

Sunk deeper in the water was the broad-backed _Abeille_, significantly
named "La Petroleuse," the heroine of four explosions, no favourite with
either crews or commanders; and, cradled in a low dock on the farther
strip of beach, was stretched the _Triton_, looking like a huge fish
which had panted itself to death. The _Triton_ also was not a lucky
boat; she had been the theatre of a terrible mishap when, for some
inexplicable cause, the conning tower had failed to close. Claire was
always glad to see her safe in dock.

Out in the middle of the bay was _La Glorieuse_, a submarine of the
latest type. Had she not lain so low, little more than her flying bridge
being above the water, she would have put her elder sisters to shame, so
exquisitely shaped was she. Everything about _La Glorieuse_ was made
delicately true to scale, and she could carry a crew of over twenty men.
But somehow Claire de Wissant did not care for this miniature leviathan
as she did for the older kind of submarine, and, with more reason for
his prejudice, the officer in charge of the flotilla shared her feeling.
Commander Dupre thought _La Glorieuse_ difficult to handle un