f about four inches diameter. Next, the topsides
caught fire, and they had barely saved their craft, letting their masts
burn to do so.

"Was it a bright, sunshiny day?" asked Metcalf.

"Sure. Four days ago. He was heading about sou'west, and going slow."

"Anything happen to your eyesight?"

"Say--yes. One of my men's gone stone blind. Thinks he must have looked
squarely at the sun when he thought he was looking at the fire up
aloft."

"It wasn't the sun. Keep him in utter darkness for a week at least.
He'll get well. What was your position when you met that fellow?"

"About six hundred miles due nor'west from here."

"All right. Look out for Japanese craft. War is declared."

Metcalf plotted a new course, designed to intercept that of the
mysterious craft, and went on, so elated by the news he had heard that
he took his gossipy young executive into his confidence.

"Mr. Smith," he said, "that sealer described one of the new seagoing
submersibles of the Japanese, did he not?"

"Yes, sir, I think he did--a larger submarine, without any conning-tower
and the old-fashioned periscope. They have seven thousand miles'
cruising radius, enough to cross the Pacific."

By asking questions of various craft, and by diligent use of a
telescope, Metcalf found his quarry three days later--a log-like object
on the horizon, with the slim white pole amidships and the excrescence
near its base.

"Wait till I get his bearing by compass," said Metcalf to his chief
officer, "then we'll smoke up our specs and run down on him. Signal him
by the International Code to put out his light, and to heave to, or
we'll sink him."

Mr. Smith bowed to his superior, found the numbers of these commands in
the code book, and with a string of small flags at the signal-yard, and
every man aboard viewing the world darkly through a smoky film, the
torpedo-boat approached the stranger at thirty knots. But there was no
blinding glare of light in their eyes, and when they were within a
hundred yards of the submersible, Metcalf removed his glasses for a
moment's distinct vision. Head and shoulders out of a hatch near the
tube was a man waving a white handkerchief. He rang the stopping bells.

"He surrenders, Mr. Smith," he said, joyously, "and without firing a
torpedo!"

He examined the man through the telescope and laughed.

"I know him," he said. Then funneling his hands, he hailed:

"Do you surrender to the United States of America?"

"I