gerly watching naval cadets. But at last young
Benson's hand reached toward the compressed air apparatus.

"A-a-a-ah!" It was meant for a cheer, but it sounded more like a groan.

Up above, in the tower, the midshipman bending over the compass,
suddenly realized that daylight was filtering down through the water.
In another instant the midshipman glanced up to find the tower above
the surface.

Yet Cadet Midshipman Osgoodby gasped as though he had intended to
scream instead. For, right ahead, her great bows looming up in the
path of the little submarine, was a big liner, coming straight toward
them!

CHAPTER XXI

"NO MORE MEN GO OVERBOARD!"

In a time like this a man's coolness and nerve receive the utmost test.

Had Jack Benson been there at the wheel he would have swung both hands
to the diving controls and shot below the surface.

But Cadet Osgoodby, now at the wheel, did not sufficiently understand
the use of the diving controls.

Whatever was to be done had to be accomplished in the fewest seconds,
or the little submarine craft was bound to be ground to scrap iron
under the great bows of the steamship.

Both of the other midshipmen saw the danger in the same instant as did
Midshipman Osgoodby.

Yet neither of these young men knew better what to do than did the
third. All they could do was to stiffen and to stand loyally beside
their comrade in charge.

Perhaps for not half a second did Osgoodby hesitate.

Then he took the only chance that he saw; he threw the wheel over to
port, jamming it there.

In strained, awful silence, the three waited. Never had seconds seemed
so long before--not even under water.

On came the great liner, and now her bow was right atop of the bow at
the forward end of the submarine's platform deck. There was just an
instant to spare, but the "Farnum" shot past the oncoming,
hostile-looking bows. In another moment the little craft, now more
than awash, was out of harm's way.

None the less, the alarm had been passed on to those aboard the liner.
That great craft, bound up from South Africa, carried diamonds and gold
coin, in the purser's vaults in the hold, amounting in value to more
than four million dollars.

All the way from Cape Town the passengers had been chaffing each other
about the chance of meeting modern, up-to-date pirates.

"The only up-to-date pirate would be one that came in a submarine
boat," Captain Coster had laughingly told his passeng