--in fact had sent a shot or two. Metcalf shut off
gasoline, waited a day, and saw the smoke on the horizon. Then he
submerged to the awash condition, which in this boat just floated the
searchlight out of water; and thus balanced, neither floating nor
sinking nor rolling, but rising and falling with the long pulsing of the
ground-swell, he watched through the periscope the approach of the
enemy.

It was an impressive spectacle, and to a citizen of a threatened country
a disquieting one. Nine high-sided battle-ships of ten-gun type--nine
floating forts, each one, unopposed, able to reduce to smoking ruin a
city out of sight of its gunners; each one impregnable to the shell fire
of any fortification in the world, and to the impact of the heaviest
torpedo yet constructed--they came silently along in line-ahead
formation, like Indians on a trail. There were no compromises in this
fleet. Like the intermediate batteries of the ships themselves, cruisers
had been eliminated and it consisted of extremes, battle-ships, and
torpedo-boats, the latter far to the rear. But between the two were half
a dozen colliers, repair, and supply ships.

Night came down before they were near enough for operations, and Metcalf
turned on his invisible light, expanding the beam to embrace the fleet
in its light, and moved the boat to a position about a mile away from
its path. It was a weird picture now showing in the periscope: each gray
ship a bluish-green against a background of black marked here and there
by the green crest of a breaking sea. Within Metcalf's reach were the
levers, cranks, and worms that governed the action of the periscope and
the light; just before him were the vertical and horizontal
steering-wheels; under these a self-illuminating compass, and at his ear
a system of push-buttons, speaking-tubes, and telegraph-dials that put
him in communication with every man on the boat, each one of whom had
his part to play at the proper moment, but not one of whom could see or
know the result. The work to be done was in Metcalf's hands and brain,
and, considering its potentiality, it was a most undramatic performance.

He waited until the leading flag-ship was within half a mile of being
abreast; then, turning on a hanging electric bulb, he held it close to
the eyepiece of the periscope, knowing that the light would go up the
tube through the lenses and be visible to the fleet. And in a moment he
heard faintly through the steel walls