t report.

McClure sprang again to the periscope.

"Yes, we ought to get a line on him soon enough now," was his rejoinder.

For a moment the two officers studied the haze of the night sea
around them, unable yet to discern the form of the approaching vessel.
And then came a huge specter, looming up directly off the starboard
quarter of the _Dewey_ in the proportions of a massive warship.

"Looks like a German cruiser," said the American lieutenant as he
gripped the brass wheel of the periscope and gave himself intently
to the task of divining the identity of the unknown ship.

Cleary was making observations at the reserve periscope, the two
officers having plunged the conning tower of the _Dewey_ in utter
darkness that they might better observe the shadowy hulk bearing
down upon them.

"It is a German cruiser---_Plauen_ class---and coming up in a hurry
at better than twenty knots," exclaimed McClure, as the outline of
the ship was implanted clean-cut against the horizon dead ahead of
the _Dewey_.

His hand on the firing valve, the submarine commander waited only until
the bow of the German warship showed on the range glass of the
periscope, and then released a torpedo.

Instantly a great volume of compressed air swirled into the upper port
chamber; the bowcap was opened and the missile sped on its way.

"Gee, I hope that 'moldy' lands her!" shouted Jack at the sound of the
discharged torpedo.

Although but a short time in the North Sea and just getting well
acquainted with their English cousins, the American lads were fast
learning the lingo of the deep. To every man aboard the _Dewey_ a
torpedo was a "moldy," so named by the English seamen.

As the torpedo crew sprang to reload the emptied chamber the _Dewey's_
diving rudders were turned, ballast was shipped and she started to
dive. The plunge came none too soon. A lookout on the German
cruiser, eagle-eyed about his daring venture, had noted the approaching
torpedo and sounded an alarm. At the same moment the ship's rudder
was thrown over and she swung to starboard, paralleling the position
of the _Dewey_. And just as she came around one of her big searchlights
aft flashed into life and shot its bright rays over the water. For a
moment or two a finger of ghostly white shifted aimlessly to and fro
over the surf ace of the sea and then centered full upon the
disappearing periscope of the _Dewey_! Instantly came the boom of
the ship's guns as they be