"No, sir, I don't see anything," he reported at length.

"Neither do I now," said the other after another look. "I would have sworn, though, that I saw something like a raft moving towards that scow."

The commander had indeed caught a glimpse of the Mermaid rising to the surface to get her bearings, but she had instantly dived, nor did she again visit the surface until safely within the shadow of the great scow.

She had run down the river the night before, and had lain behind the breakwater with only a small portion of her turret above the surface, until the tow, with its accompanying cutter, had passed out to sea. Then she followed, with her eyes just awash, and dove deep beneath the revenue vessel when it turned back. Upon next coming to the surface, she had been allowed to rise a little too far, and so was very nearly discovered.

"It was a close shave," admitted Carl Baldwin, after the Mermaid was safely ensconced within the closed pocket of the great scow; "but a safe miss is as good as a thousand miles, and now we are all right till we get to Havana."

"Don't you be too sure of that," admonished the captain of the tug gruffly. "There's many a cruiser between here and there, and every one of 'em is sartin to board us."

So it proved. At Charleston, where the tug put in for coal, leaving her tow in the lower bay, the scow was boarded by revenue officers, who did not leave her until she was again at sea; and all the while the poor little Mermaid was dodging about under water, only coming up now and then for a breath and a quick glance at her surroundings, like a hunted sea-fowl.

Off the mouth of the St. John's River, the tow was hove-to by a blank shot from a Government cruiser, and again was the Mermaid forced to seek safety at the bottom of the sea. This time she avenged herself by rising directly beneath the cruiser, and demonstrating to the Professor's entire satisfaction how easily he could if he chose place and fire a torpedo that would blow her from the water.

It had been decided to touch at Key West, the most southerly extremity of Florida, as well as of the United States, and only eighty-five miles across the Gulf Stream from Havana, and finally, after many narrow escapes from discovery, our adventurers reached the port of that quaint island-city in safety.

Here they found several American men-of-war, a small fleet of 

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