s you can," he whispered,
"and, Geraldine--if anything should happen to us, I never changed--not
for a moment."

"I don't believe I ever did, either," she sobbed, holding out her hand.

Another wave broke over them. They came up, however. He gripped her wet
hand for a moment. All around them were articles of ship's furniture,
broken planks, here and there a man swimming. From close at hand came
the shriek of the vanishing siren.

"Look!" Geraldine cried.

Barely fifty feet away from them was the submarine. The captain and four
or five of the men were on deck. Thomson shouted to him.

"Can't you save some of these women?"

The answer was a laugh--hoarse, brutal, derisive. The submarine glided
away. Thomson's face as he looked after it, was black with anger.
The next moment he recovered himself, however. He had need of all his
strength.

"Don't listen to anything, Geraldine," he begged her. "They will nearly
all be saved. Can't you hear the sirens already? There are plenty of
ships coming up. Remember, we can't go down so long as we keep hold
here."

"But you've no lifebelt on," she faltered.

"I don't need it," he assured her. "I can keep afloat perfectly well.
You're not cold?"

"No," she gasped, "but I feel so low down. The sky seems suddenly
further away. Oh, if some one would come!"

There were sirens now, and plenty of them, close at hand. Out of the
mist they saw a great black hull looming.

"They're here all right!" he cried. "Courage, Geraldine! It's only
another five minutes."

Thirty miles an hour into a fog of mist, with the spray falling like a
fountain and the hiss of the seawater like devil's music in their ears.
Then the haze lifted like the curtain before the stage of a theatre, and
rolled away into the dim distance. An officer stood by Conyers' side.

"Hospital ship Princess Hilda just torpedoed by a submarine, sir.
They're picking up the survivors already. We're right into 'em sir."

Even as he spoke, the moonlight shone down. There were two trawlers and
a patrol boat in sight, and twenty or thirty boats rowing to the scene
of the disaster. Suddenly there was a shout.

"Submarine on the port bow!"

They swung around. The sea seemed churned into a mass of soapy foam.
Conyers gripped the rail in front of him. The orders had scarcely left
his lips before the guns were thundering out. The covered-in structure
on the lower deck blazed with an unexpected light. The gun below swung
slowl