bout it," agreed Danvers.

Presently, the naval officer himself took a hand at managing the
submarine. Jack, knowing that the boat was in fine professional hands,
slipped unconcernedly below, to chat with Hal Hastings, who sat doggedly
by his engines.

"What's the matter? What makes you look so solemn, old fellow?" asked
the young submarine skipper, when he caught sight of his chum's solemn
face.

"Oh, you'd laugh, if I told you," smiled Hal.

"Seeing omens of ill again!" persisted young Benson.

"I suppose," sighed Hal, "well, I have a sort of premonition."

"Pre--premo--" stuttered Captain Jack, holding comically to the port
side of his jaw. "Oh, pshaw! Call it a plain United States 'hunch.'
What's the tip the spooks are giving anyway, Hal?"

Hastings smiled again, though he went on:

"Oh, it's just a queer sort of notion I have that something is going to
happen to us this afternoon."

"Right-o," drawled Jack. "You don't have to shove off from that, Hal.
Something is going to happen to us. This afternoon we're going to have
the first drill in the actual firing of submarine torpedoes."

"Oh, I know that," Hastings admitted, quickly. "But what I see ahead,
or feel as though I see, is some kind of disaster. Now, you'll think
I'm a sailor-croaker, won't you, Jack?"

"Disaster?" repeated Jack, slowly. "Well, to be sure, we've the outfit
on board for a disaster, if we wanted one. Two real torpedoes that hold,
between them, four hundred pounds of gun-cotton--or danger-calico, as
Williamson would call it. But cheer up, old fellow. There's no danger,
after all. Williamson and his pipe are on the other boat."

"Oh, of course nothing is really going to happen," laughed Hal. "It is
just the feeling that is over me. That's all."

It was fully three o'clock by the time Lieutenant Danvers decided they
were far enough out to sea, and far enough from any craft in those
waters. Not a stick or a stack of another vessel showed within ten
miles of them. The scow was accordingly cast loose and allowed to
drift.

Captain Jack was at the tower wheel again, as Eph and the two sailors
returned from setting the scow loose.

"We've got to be sure to record one good hit against that old barge of
stone," muttered Lieutenant Danvers, who stood beside the youthful
submarine commander. "The sea is roughening, and I doubt if we could
pick up that scow in tow again. We've got to destroy her, or she'd be
a fearful m