peed ahead, both engines. Raise the red flag."

The firing signal was hoisted to the peak.

"Are you ready, Mr. Ordnance Officer?"

"All ready, sir."

"Sound a long blast on the siren."

The weird voice of the siren shrieked its warning over the waters,
while the prow of the battleship was rolling up a great white wave as
the ship raced along at full speed.

"Fire!" came the quick word of command.

The ordnance officer pressed a button, his eyes on the target.

A dull, muffled explosion followed.

CHAPTER XVIII

HARD AND FAST AGROUND

"Wow!"

Sam, who had climbed to the top of the signal box for a better view of
sea, was so startled that he lost his footing in leaping to one side.

"Look out below!" he howled. "I'm coming!"

"Gangway!" cried half a dozen sailors at once, as, with quick
intuition, they discovered what was occurring.

Hickey, in attempting to right himself, had plunged head foremost from
the signal box. In his descent he caught a signal halyard. He bounded
up into the air like a tight-rope walker. The next instant he struck a
chain that had been rigged as a railing on the companionway to the
lower bridge.

"Look out below!" bellowed a voice. "Torpedo coming your way."

Sam balanced, for one awful second, on the companionway chain, then
pitched downward through the open hatchway. He disappeared in the
direction of the gun deck. From the commotion below it was evident to
those on the lower bridge that he had reached his destination.

"What's all that racket?" demanded the captain, looking aft from the
navigator's bridge.

"Signalman fell off, sir."

"Fell off where?"

"Off the signal box, sir."

"Where is he?"

"I think the gun deck stopped him, sir."

"Get another man up there to attend to the signaling. We cannot bother
with such clumsy lubbers."

"No other signalmen on board, sir."

The captain uttered an exclamation of impatience.

"Find out if he is hurt. Watch that torpedo, Mr. Coates."

"We're watching it, sir. It is following a very straight course."

For a few seconds after leaving the torpedo tube, far below the surface
of the water, the torpedo wavered as if uncertain what course it should
follow.

All at once it straightened out and darted away off toward Gardiner's
Island, where the target could be faintly made out through the
officer's powerful glasses. The gyroscope, with which all torpedoes
are equipped, caused the projectile to righ