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By this time the tug's rockets were spent and the German cruisers were rushing down a line of gigantic smoke-palms that were planted by the little vessel. "You might as well surrender," called the American coolly. "You won't find a merchantman if you go in thicker fields you know that." "Surrender!" bawled Smith. "Do you think they shall have this tug to haul their prizes?
Captain Joe looked over his shoulder, noted the widening distance, and leaped back to the inshore rocks. Late that afternoon, when the tug, with Captain Joe and me on board, reached the tug's moorings in New London harbor, the dock was crowded with anxious faces, Abram Marrows and his wife among them. It had been an anxious day along the shore road.
Suddenly the tug swung her blunt beak around with the sidelong blow of an angry swine. Madden went flying to the right rail of the bridge to stare down at the imminent tragedy. A dim shadowy bulk was hurtling through the blue water. Suddenly, just as the tug's prow swung athwart her course, the submarine lined up straight with the Panther.
Paris grew dull to us after this, and we were more eager than ever to go back to London: for what should we hear, but that that monster, Tuggeridge, of the City old Tug's black son, forsooth! was going to contest Jemmy's claim to the property, and had filed I don't know how many bills against us in Chancery!
But we got away at 7 next day my four men and the tug's three. At the wheel was a halfbreed David MacPherson who is said to be a natural-born pilot, and the best in the country.
"Hold hard," yelled our skipper, and the Lizzie slipped into the turmoil of the tug's wake. There would be Millwall. The tug and the turmoil had gone. We were alone again in the beyond. There was no sound now but the water spattering under our craft, and the fumbling and infrequent splash of the sweep.
They fancied, however, that he was not, for the Catspaw would have made a nice prize for the tug's owners. The tug plunged off the way she had come and was soon only a speck in the gathering twilight.
But bruised as he was and dazed, he was on his feet with the quickness of a cat, and seizing the spokes, assisted Dan in bringing up the tug's head to where it ought to be. "It's a-goin' to be lively work salvin' any hooker to-day," said the mate. "It is," replied Dan, "but I'll tell you this, Mul; we'll land her if anybody can. For I've a tug under me built under my very eyes.
She started for it at four gravities acceleration, and Joe got his headphones to his ears and lay panting while he waited for the figures and information he had to have. He got them. When the four-gravity rockets burned out, the tug's crew painstakingly adjusted the ship's nose to a certain position. They flung themselves back into the acceleration chairs and Joe fired a six-g blast.
Like all crafts in this mysterious sea, it seemed completely forsaken, deserted. With a shake of his shoulders he put the thought from him and turned to face the future in the motionless tug that lay ahead. Half an hour later the dinghy drew alongside the silent Vulcan and the crew clambered aboard. As they had suspected, there was no sign of the tug's crew aboard.
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