not surrender. Rather he would explode the war-heads of the torpedoes still within the hull, and send the submarine to instant destruction, at the same time involving the annihilation of the two boats and their crews.

At all costs Webb determined to "stand fast", but it was with mingled feelings of elation and apprehension that he regarded the shadowy outlines of his "capture", as the enormous hull showed dimly at twelve feet beneath the surface. Air bubbles broke upon the slightly agitated waves as the U-boat strove either to "sound" or break away and rise awash. At intervals her twin screws churned the water, sometimes going ahead and sometimes astern, with the result that the cutter and the whaler crashed gunwale to gunwale half a dozen times in twice as many minutes. Only the skilful and strenuous endeavours of their crews prevented the strongly-built sides from collapsing like shattered egg-shells.

All this while the Portchester Castle was bearing down upon the boats. Captain M'Bride knew that something unusual was taking place. The erratic movements of the two craft told him that, but he was at a loss to understand the reason.

"Cutter ahoy!" came a hail through a megaphone from the armed merchantman's bridge.

"What are you foul of?"

One of the boat's crew, producing two handflags, dexterously balanced himself upon one of the thwarts.

"Hooked a submarine, sir," he reported.

"How does she lie?" was the skipper's next question.

"Bows away from you, sir; her stern's swinging on to your port bow."

This knowledge was of importance, for, although the U-boat was blind, it was just possible that her crew might discharge a torpedo on the off chance of the missile getting home.

"Stand by to cast off roundly," came the next order from the Portchester Castle. "I'm going to ram her aft."

"Now for it," thought Tom Webb. "If we're not in the ditch within the next fifty seconds I'll be very much mistaken."

The Sub had barely expressed himself thus, when with a quivering jerk the U-boat shot above the surface, exposing the whole of the after part of the 

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