"Where is the Japanese fleet bound?" he asked, sternly.

"I do not know."

"And would not tell, whether you knew or not. But you said you were
helpless. What has happened to you? You can tell that."

"A simple thing, Captain Metcalf. My supply of oil leaked away, and my
engines must work slowly. Your signal was useless; I could not have
turned on the light."

"You have answered the first question. You are far from home without a
mother-ship, or she would have found you and furnished oil before this.
You have come thus far expecting the fleet to follow and strike a
helpless coast before your supplies ran out."

Again the Jap's eyes dropped in confusion, and Metcalf went on.

"I can refurnish your boat with oil, my engineer and my men can handle
her, and I can easily learn to manipulate your--or shall I say
_our_--invisible searchlight. Hail your craft in English and order all
hands on deck unarmed, ready for transshipment to this boat. I shall
join your fleet myself."

A man was lounging in the hatchway of the submersible, and this man
Saiksi hailed.

"Ae-hai, ae-hai, Matsu. We surrender. We are prisoner. Call up all men
onto the deck. Leave arms behind. We are prisoner."

They mustered eighteen in all, and in half an hour they were ironed in a
row along the stanchioned rail of the torpedo-boat.

"You, too, Saiksi," said Metcalf, coming toward him with a pair of
jingling handcuffs.

"Is it not customary, Captain Metcalf," said the Jap, "to parole a
surrendered commander?"

"Not the surrendered commander of a craft that uses new and deadly
weapons of war unknown to her adversary, and before the declaration of
war. Hold up your hands. You're going into irons with your men. All Japs
look alike to me, now."

So Lieutenant Saiksi, of the Japanese navy, was ironed beside his cook
and meekly sat down on the deck. With the difference of dress, they
really did look alike.

Metcalf had thirty men in his crew. With the assistance of his engineer,
a man of mechanics, he picked eighteen of this crew and took them and a
barrel of oil aboard the submersible. Then for three days the two craft
lay together, while the engineer and the men familiarized themselves
with her internal economy--the torpedo-tubes, gasoline-engines,
storage-batteries, and motors; and the vast system of pipes, valves, and
wires that gave life and action to the boat--and while Metcalf
experimented with the mysterious searchlight attached to the pe