ho have been chosen to teach you that one cannot live under artificial
conditions and yet act as if they were natural ones. More foresight,
Johnny, and less party politics--that is my lesson to you." And then I
had a wave of pity, too, when I thought of those vast droves of helpless
people, Yorkshire miners, Lancashire spinners, Birmingham metal-workers,
the dockers and workers of London, over whose little homes I would bring
the shadow of starvation. I seemed to see all those wasted eager hands
held out for food, and I, John Sirius, dashing it aside. Ah, well! war
is war, and if one is foolish one must pay the price.

Just before daybreak I saw the lights of a considerable town, which must
have been Yarmouth, bearing about ten miles west-south-west on our
starboard bow. I took her farther out, for it is a sandy, dangerous
coast, with many shoals. At five-thirty we were abreast of the Lowestoft
lightship. A coastguard was sending up flash signals which faded into a
pale twinkle as the white dawn crept over the water. There was a good
deal of shipping about, mostly fishing-boats and small coasting craft,
with one large steamer hull-down to the west, and a torpedo destroyer
between us and the land. It could not harm us, and yet I thought it as
well that there should be no word of our presence, so I filled my tanks
again and went down to ten feet. I was pleased to find that we got under
in one hundred and fifty seconds. The life of one's boat may depend on
this when a swift craft comes suddenly upon you.

We were now within a few hours of our cruising ground, so I determined to
snatch a rest, leaving Vornal in charge. When he woke me at ten o'clock
we were running on the surface, and had reached the Essex coast off the
Maplin Sands. With that charming frankness which is one of their
characteristics, our friends of England had informed us by their Press
that they had put a cordon of torpedo-boats across the Straits of Dover
to prevent the passage of submarines, which is about as sensible as to
lay a wooden plank across a stream to keep the eels from passing. I knew
that Stephan, whose station lay at the western end of the Solent, would
have no difficulty in reaching it. My own cruising ground was to be at
the mouth of the Thames, and here I was at the very spot with my tiny
_Iota_, my eighteen torpedoes, my quick-firing gun, and, above all, a
brain that knew what should be done and how to do it.

When I resu