brought my own boat right under the demon craft, and then, tilting
her up at a sharp angle, rammed the other in the center of her keel.

There was a concussion, a muffled sound of tearing iron, and as I
backed away at full speed astern, I saw the waters of the North Sea
pour through a long jagged rent in the bottom of the doomed
submarine, and watched her go down staggering like a wounded vulture
through the air.

The shock of the collision had brought Orloff and the rest of my crew
running aft.

"An accident," I explained coolly. "I have sunk some boat or other in
the dark."

The men exchanged suspicious glances.

"It was the other submarine, sir," said Orloff, still preserving his
respectful tone. "Will you permit us to see whether it is possible to
save any of the crew?"

"Do as you please," I returned, leaving the helm. "My work here is
done, and I am ready to go back."

I intended them to think I referred to the attack on the
fishing-boats. The cannonade died away as I spoke.

We went down through the water to where the wrecked submarine was
lying half over on her side. Some frightened faces peered at us out
of the upper portholes, where a supply of air still lingered.

It was impossible to do anything for them down there without being
swamped ourselves. We could only invite them by signs to forsake
their own craft and let us carry them up to the surface where it
would be safe for us to take them inside.

In order to receive them on our upper deck we circled slowly around
to the opposite side of their vessel. And there I beheld a sight
which will haunt me for years to come.

The whole side of the submarine had been wrenched open, revealing the
interior of the cabin. And on the floor, lying in the peaceful
attitude of one who had just resigned herself to sleep, I beheld the
drowned form of the beautiful, desperate, perhaps wicked, but
unhappy, woman from whose mad love I had fled.

So, in the midst of the wild North Sea, in their strange coffin, the
bones of Sophia, Princess Yernoloff, lie and rock on the incessant
tides that sweep across the Dogger Bank.

_Requiescat in pace!_

As our boat, laden with the rescued survivors, shot up again to the
surface, I felt a noosed rope drawn tightly around my throat and
heard the voice of Orloff hiss in my ear,

"I arrest you in the name of the Kaiser!"

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE FAMILY STATUTE

My task is done. At last the reader knows all that ever