k of the
glorious achievement!"

"I'd rather go back north," persisted the lady. "But I wouldn't ask you
to turn the ship around. What I was going to suggest was to sail along
on the surface for a few days and see if you cannot sight a homeward
bound steamer or sailing vessel. Then you could put me and Nellie aboard
her."

"Of course!" exclaimed Mr. Henderson. "I never thought of that. Though
we will be sorry to lose your company, and that of your little girl, I
will do anything to oblige you. We will at once go to the surface."

He called the necessary order to Jack through a speaking tube which led
to the conning tower. In a few minutes the ship shot upward, and emerged
from the ocean in a little shower of foam and spray.

She lay undulating on the surface, and was just beginning to move
forward again, under the influence of the screw, when a dull boom echoed
off to the left.

Jack looked from the observation windows in the conning tower and saw,
about a mile away a big steamer. From her side a white cloud of smoke
floated, and then the water splashed about fifty feet from the blunt
nose of the submarine.

Once more came the boom, the white cloud of smoke and this time the
water splashed only twenty-five feet away from the bow of the
_Porpoise_. A third time came the sound, and the splash was even nearer.

"They're firing on us!" yelled Jack.

At his cry the professor ran on deck. He was just in time to see the
fourth shot made, and this time the shell dropped into the water just
astern of the _Porpoise_ and so close that when it exploded it sent a
shower of spray all over the deck.

"Here! Stop that!" yelled Mr. Henderson, shaking his fist in the
direction of the steamer. "You nearly hit us that time. Do your
practicing in some other direction!"

"I don't think they can hear you," said Jack. "And besides, I don't
believe they are practicing."

"Then what in the world are they doing?"

"Shooting at us I guess."

"Why do they want to shoot at us? We haven't done them any damage."

"Perhaps they think we are a torpedo boat," suggested Jack. "Maybe that
vessel's nation is at war with some other one and wants to sink us if
it can."

"I believe you're right!" exclaimed Mr. Henderson. "But this will never
do. They must stop!"

Once more the big gun on the ship was fired and the shell came
dangerously close. At the same time several other reports, less in
volume were heard, and the water all about the s