or the
crew of the U-boat, who themselves had neither pity nor consideration
for the hapless victims, men, women, and children, massacred against
all dictates of humanity and convention of civilized warfare.

"A bit of work for the dockyard lighters to-morrow," commented
Sub-lieutenant Barry, as the _Capella_ parted company to resume her run
up-Channel. "They'll raise the U-boat, and take her into dry dock,
before the sulphuric acid has had time to do much damage to her
mechanism."

"I shouldn't be surprised if there were another U-boat knocking
around," remarked Vernon. "From our limited experience we know that
they work either in pairs or threes."

"Then the worse for them," rejoined Barry. "It would be a great wheeze
to bag two of them in one day. Desperate diseases need desperate
remedies, you know."

Therein the Sub voiced the unanimous opinion of the British Navy. At
the commencement of the war, the torpedoing of several battleships and
cruisers by German submarines aroused no enmity within the hearts of
the British tars. They realized that a warship is "fair sport" to the
submarines of the opposing side. To run the risk of being blown up was
one of the excitements to undergo in the course of duty. But when it
came to torpedoing helpless merchantmen, and jeering at the
death-struggles of the unfortunate crews, Jack Tar began to regard the
unterseebooten in the light of pirates and murderers. The wanton
destruction of the _Lusitania_, accompanied by the appalling death-roll
of non-combatants, women and children, literally sounded the
death-knell of the crews of von Tirpitz's jolly-Roger-flying
submarines. In their methods of "frightfulness" they had overreached
themselves. They had sown a wind: they were now reaping a whirlwind
with a vengeance.

And now the great silent Navy was paying back von Tirpitz in almost,
but not quite, his own coin. While the much-advertised blockade of
Great Britain was petering out, British submarines were playing havoc
with German shipping in the Baltic--a sea which the Teutons regarded as
being almost their very own. Yet what a difference marked the methods
adopted by the humane commanders of our submarines when dealing with
German mercantile shipping. A punctilious regard for the safety of the
crews of overhauled merchantmen won admiration even from the seamen of
the destroyed vessels. Humiliation and reproach seemed to haunt the
white-bearded dotard, whose hand