anything like that. Only the moon could stand such
lights, although they must disgust even the moon, used to dark deeds.

The ship, which was safe under the holy flag of humanity and mercy, was
loaded from bow to stern with artillery supplies, and amongst the guns
and ammunition there was crowded an army of soldiers and horses. Under
the protection of the colors of the flags, which they were so
atrociously misusing, they were proceeding in the daylight on the way to
the front.

"Such a crowd!" exclaimed Groening, and stepped back from the periscope.

"And such a shame that we can't touch it," said I, furious, and stamped
on the iron floor so that it resounded. "I would like to have gotten
hold of it. Such nasty people, such hypocrites! But it can't be helped.
The boat is too fast and too far away for us to head it off."

Of course, we tried and went after it at top speed for some time. But
the distance became greater instead of lessening, and, with our
batteries exhausted, we had to abandon the chase. Then we turned,
furious and swearing, and came to the surface again after a little
time.

It was a very unpleasant feeling, after a short chase, to have to lie
with exhausted batteries, and limp ahead like a lame horse. Consequently
we did not attempt any new enterprise, but remained on the open water
for several hours charging our storage batteries. Just as we were about
through with this work, there came along an insolent trawler which
started to chase us. None of us had any desire to submerge again,
because the sun was shining so beautifully, and it became warmer with
each minute we headed south.

As the propeller, now free from the nets with which we were fouled,
could give us our best speed, we immediately began the race and hastened
laughingly and in good spirits ahead. Our boat cut through the waves
with such speed as it showed when it first came from its wharf. The
foam made a silver-white mane for us. What did we care if we got wet? We
went at top speed, and, smiling, looked at the smoking and puffing
steamer behind us.

"He'll never catch us," I said to Krueger, who had come up to the conning
tower to ask if we were going fast enough, or if he should try to get
more speed out of our engines. "Just keep her turning at the same rate,
Herr Engineer. That's sufficient. It looks now as if we were gaining," I
told him.

Our pursuer seemed to realize he could not overtake us and tried to
anger us in other way