Again the _Vulcan_ dashed at the diving terror as it disappeared and the cruiser swung clear around in a northerly tack. Her commander was trying to outguess the man under the sea.

A strange game of blind-man's-buff the three dissimilar crafts were playing. Caradoc assumed the submarine pilot would guess that the _Panther_ had fled north, and he sent the tug spitting along a course that would lie between the cruiser and her enemy. The _Panther_ was forced to repass the _Vulcan_ in the new maneuver.

The giant and pygmy were flying along at top speed, fairly abreast, scarcely five hundred yards apart.

Leonard took his eyes off the starboard sea a moment to look at the lion which this mouse was trying to nibble free, when suddenly, not thirty yards on the _inside_ of the tug popped up the periscope.

The American rushed to the wheel, jerked it to the starboard. "Yonder!

Yonder!" he bellowed in Caradoc's ear, pointing.

[Illustration: The Battle.]

Again the guns shrilled forth; a steel sleet wailed about the _Vulcan_. Into the teeth of this blast, the tug circled and lunged.

With fascinated eyes, Madden watched the periscope cut a swirling circle on the midst of the beaten water and straighten on the _Panther_.

Now the metal eye was directly under their swaying starboard. A moment they sped side by side, toward the imperiled cruiser. Madden could almost have touched the wireless masts. A whine of bullets ripped one of their lifeboats like a saw and sputtered through the superstructure.

The periscope, which thrust six or seven feet out of water, disappeared under the swell of the _Vulcan's_ hull. Suddenly the tug swung her blunt beak around with the sidelong blow of an angry swine. Madden went flying to the right rail of the bridge to stare down at the imminent tragedy.

A dim shadowy bulk was hurtling through the blue water. Suddenly, just as the tug's prow swung athwart her course, the submarine lined up straight with the _Panther_. A great belching of bubbles wallowed up through the turbulent sea as a sign that the torpedo was launched.

A heart-stopping moment, in which the diving boat, the darting shadow of the torpedo, the blocking prow of the _Vulcan_ was clear.

A titanic upheaval of water; volcanic fires leaping out of the heart of the deep; a roar so absolutely appalling that it reduced the battle to a whisper!

The prow of the _Vulcan_ reared up and bent back over the main deck. In the same instant, out of the cauldron sea, an enormous cigar-shaped object was flung end-over-end, as a child flings a spindle.

There was one flashing glimpse of conning tower, smashed plates. Then a clap of surging air that seemed as solid as oak picked Madden up as if he had been thistledown. He felt himself whirling through space.

Somehow, he caught a glimpse of a string of signals that had been blown from the wrecked masts of the shattered _Vulcan_. Then he felt a stinging blow of water as he hit the sea.

The submarine had destroyed both herself and the tug with her first torpedo.

CHAPTER XXII

THE VICTORIA CROSS

Shocked, stunned, half blinded, Madden found himself kicking in the water amidst a wreckage of spars, planks, buoys, with here and there a swimmer struggling to stay on the surface. The whole mass of flotsam swung slowly around the whirlpool where tug and submarine had sunk.

The circling water was filmed with oil, the life-blood of the stricken submarine. Presently the concavity in the ocean mounted to level, and its rotation slowly died away. The American found that his arms had unwittingly clasped something which proved to be an empty tin canister with a screw top. He hung to it apathetically. His ears bled from the concussion of the torpedo, and it was with difficulty that he focussed his eyes on anything.

Presently he became aware of a voice calling his name. It seemed a long way off, but when he looked around he saw Farnol Greer quite close to him. The thick-set black-headed fellow motioned for Madden to approach, and the American kicked himself and his float in that direction. A little later he saw that Malone was with Farnol, and that the two were supporting a third man.

"Lend us a 'and, 'ere, Madden," called Malone; "our chap's knocked out."

"Who is it? Oh, it's Caradoc!" Madden stared down into the still, upturned face with a dull emotionless feeling. He was too numb to feel or sympathize. "Is he dead?" he finally asked.

"Wounded, sir," replied Greer.

At that moment, the Englishman moved slightly, opened his eyes.

"We--stopped it, Madden."

"Are you badly hurt?" inquired the American, becoming more nearly normal himself.

"Punch through my shoulder."

"Were you hit in the explosion?"

"One of the _Panther's_ machine guns--ricocheted, I think."

"What rotten luck!" growled Madden.

Smith reached his good arm to the float. "Had it all my life in little things, Madden, but the _Panther_--that torpedo----"

"Boat ahoy!" called Farnol Greer suddenly.

Leonard looked about and saw that the _Panther_ had laid to, a good two miles distant, and two of her cutters were coming back to pick up the survivors. A blue-jacket on the sharp bow of the little vessel waved an arm at Farnol's cry, and presently the rescuing party was alongside.

Caradoc went up first, then Farnol, Malone and Madden, who automatically clung to his tin canister.

The sailors from the warship were chattering excitedly over the miraculous preservation of the _Panther_.

"If that tug had been 'arf a second later," declared one, "she'd 'ave 'ad us, Sniper, sure--to th' port, there, Bobby, there's another chap kickin' in th' water."

One of the sailors had a roll of bandages, and he now moved over to Caradoc and stooped over the wounded man.

"You're pinked," he said in a tone of authority. "I'll take a turn o'

this linen around your shoulder." Suddenly he paused as he glanced into the sufferer's face. "Why--why, hit's the Lieut'nant!" he stammered.

Then he stood erect and saluted properly. "Would you 'ave a bandage, sir?" he asked in a different one.

Caradoc assented wearily and shifted his shoulder for the band of linen.

The fellow must have been a surgeon's helper, for he applied the strip rather dexterously as the cutter steamed about picking up the rest of the _Vulcan's_ crew who had survived the catastrophe.

Half an hour later friendly hands helped the waifs up the _Panther's_ accommodation ladder, where a group of officers and men waited to be of service to the _Vulcan's_ crew.

The deck of the cruiser was torn and blackened from the German fire; here and there were sailors in bandages. Stretchers were placed at the head of the ladder for the tug's wounded.

The crew, of the _Panther_ showed the utmost cordiality and also the utmost curiosity toward their visitors. A dapper young midshipman gripped Madden's hand as he stepped on the broad deck.

"Where did that tug come from?" he inquired at once. "Most extraordinary sight--whole fleet pounding away at a tug--Ponsonby is my name."

Madden mentioned his own, and several brother officers, seeing that here was an intelligent fellow, gathered about the American. Two or three were introduced with English formality.

"If you are not too bowled over, old chap," begged a middy named Gridson, "explain to us how a tug ever happened in the middle of the Sargasso in full flight from a hostile fleet."

Some of the wounded were still coming up from the cutter, as Madden made a beginning of the tug's story. Just then he was interrupted by Ponsonby.

"Pardon, Madden, but who is that chap coming up--Say, Gridson, that isn't--why that's Wentworth!" The middy suddenly dropped his voice.