but
here and there colored-light signs, too. After another look at the
multiplicity of them, almost any man would agree that it is a good
scheme.

But to get back: the tank man has done his part and our sub is sinking.
There is no unusual feeling to inform a man she is sinking. Only for the
starting of the engines, the diving-rudder man getting busy, and the
wide-faced gauge's long green finger beginning to walk around, a man who
didn't know could easily believe that the sub was still tied up alongside
her supply-ship. But the long green finger is walking, and marking 5
feet, 10 feet, 11, 12, as it walks. At 16 feet the finger oscillates and
stops, and to that depth our diving-rudder man holds her while she speeds
on for a mile or so.

That first little dash is by way of warming her up. The officer for
whose government this submarine was built is aboard. He now asks for a
torpedo demonstration. So two 1,500-pound dummy torpedoes are got ready,
the breeches to two of the four forward tubes opened, the torpedoes
slipped in, the breeches closed. The bow caps are then opened.

The captain, during all this time, has never left the periscope, which--to
have it explained and over with--is no more than a long telescope set on
end, with a reflecting mirror top and bottom. From the lower end of the
periscope project two brass arms, by means of which the skipper now swings
the periscope all the way around. In this way he is able to look at any
quarter of the sea he pleases.

Running at the depth we were then, the periscope showing about six feet
out of water, the captain at the periscope was, of course, the only man
who could see anything outside of her.

The captain gave the needful preliminary orders; and at the proper time,
sighting through the periscope as he did so, he pressed the button of a
little arrangement which he held, half concealed, in the palm of his
hand. There was a soft explosion, a sort of woof!--and a torpedo was on
the way to a hypothetical enemy, with only the captain able to see that
it reached its mark.

As the torpedo left the sub the rudder man gave her a "down" rudder,
which was to offset the tendency of the sub to shoot her nose to the
surface; when the torpedo had gone the tank man turned on the
air-pressure, which blew out what water had entered the torpedo chamber.
By and by the other torpedo was fired.

One reason for this trial run was to prove that she could run so many
miles an hour unde