ad to choose between being rammed or depth-bombed."

There was another swift commotion, another opening and closing of
valves, and the arrow on the depth-gauge leaped forward. Captain Bill
was sending her down as far as he could, as fast as he dared. Fifty
feet, seventy feet--ninety feet. Hoping to throw the destroyer off, the
_Z-3_ doubled on her track. A hundred feet.

Crash! Depth-charge number one.

[Sidenote: Depth bombs explode near by.]

[Sidenote: The submarine's peril.]

According to Captain Bill, who is good at similes, it was as if a giant,
wading along through the sea, had given the boat a vast and violent
kick, and then, leaning down, had shaken her as a terrier shakes a rat.
The _Z-3_ rocked, lay on her side, and fell through the water. A number
of lights went out. Men picked themselves out of corners, one with the
blood streaming down his face from a bad gash over his eye. Many of them
told later of "seeing stars" when the vibration of the depth-charge
traveled through the hull and their own bodies; some averred that "white
light" seemed to shoot out of the _Z-3's_ walls. Each man stood at his
post waiting for the next charge.

Crash! A second depth-charge. To everyone's relief, it was less violent
than the first. A few more lights went out. Meanwhile the _Z-3_
continued to sink and was rapidly nearing the danger-point. Having
escaped the first two depth-charges, Captain Bill hastened to bring the
boat up to a higher level. Then, to make things cheerful, it was
discovered that the _Z-3_ showed absolutely no inclination to obey her
controls.

[Sidenote: Anxious moments before the submarine rises again.]

"At first," said Captain Bill, "I thought that the first depth-bomb must
have jammed all the external machinery; then I decided that our measures
to rise had not yet overcome the impetus of our forced descent.
Meanwhile the old hooker was heading for the bottom of the Irish Sea,
though I'd blown out every bit of water in her tanks. Had to--fifty feet
more, and she would have crushed in like an egg-shell under the wheel of
a touring-car. But she kept on going down. The distance of the third,
fourth, and fifth depth-bombs, however, put cheer in our hearts. Then,
presently, she began to rise; the old girl came up like an elevator in a
New York business block. I knew that the minute I came to the surface
those destroyer brutes would try to fill me full of holes, so I had a
man with a flag ready to jum