British officers could just discern the red and green mercantile ensign of Portugal being slowly lowered from the vessel's ensign-staff. The Douro had surrendered: would the Portchester Castle be in time to save her from being sunk, or merely able to witness her final plunge, and experience the mortification of finding that the lawless U-boat had submerged into comparative safety?

For some seconds the silence on board the Portchester Castle was broken only by the swish of the water against her bows, the muffled thud of the propeller shaftings, and the clear incisive tones of the range-finding officer as the distance rapidly and visibly decreased betwixt the ship and the supposed position of the German submarine.

Presently, upon the rounded crest of a roller appeared the elongated conning-tower and a portion of the deck of the U-boat. She was forging gently ahead, and was just drawing clear of the bows of the Douro.

The situation was a delicate one. If the German commander's attention were wholly centred upon his capture it might be possible that the submarine would increase her distance sufficiently to enable the Portchester Castle to send a shell into her without risk to the Portuguese vessel. If, on the other hand, the approaching succourer were sighted by the Huns, the submarine would have time to go astern, close hatches under the lee of the Douro, and dive.

Five thousand yards.

A uniformed figure appeared above the poop-rail of the captured tramp. The officers of the British vessel, keeping him under observation by means of the powerful glasses, could see him gesticulating to the submarine. The latter began to lose way before going astern.

Now or never. A gap of barely fifty yards lay betwixt captor and prize. At the word of command the gun-layers of the two for'ard quick-firers bent over their sights. The two reports sounded as one as the projectiles screeched on their errand of destruction.

One shell hurtled within a few feet of the top of the conning-tower, sweeping away both periscopes in its career. The other struck the raised platform in the wake of the conning-tower, exploded, tearing a jagged hole in the hull plating. Before the smoke had time to clear away the U-boat had vanished for all time, only a smother of foam and a series of ever-widening concentric circles of iridescent oil marking her ocean bed.

Viewed from the deck of the Portchester Castle 

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