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A long, black shape surmounted by a signal-mast and four funnels slid up and out of the darkness into a patch of moonlight lying on the water. Erskine gave a quarter turn to the wheel and touched the two buttons again. The Ithuriel swung round and ran down on her prey.
The only place that people live on, when not below, is the hurricane-deck. In this centre structure are doorways which can be closed at sea. They lead down into the cabins below, as well as to the hurricane-deck, out of which rise the two funnels and an iron signal-mast.
Outside the little room the wind thrummed in the halliards of the signal-mast. The clock over the desk ticked out the deliberate seconds. A cat, curled up by the window, rose, stretching itself, and yawned. ". . . Prepare to mobilise. All officers and men are recalled from leave. Detailed orders will follow. Right. Good-bye." He replaced the receiver and rang off.
She was not exactly a submarine because she had a signal-mast forward and carried five long, ugly-looking guns, three ahead and two astern, of a type that he had never seen before. Forward of the mast there was a conning-tower of oval shape, with the lesser curves fore and aft. The breech-ends of the guns were covered by a long hood of steel, apparently of great thickness, and that was all.
There stood the freight sheds; there were the chutes for horses and mules; there, beyond them, the now abandoned office and waiting-room; and there, still glistening white and towering, the semaphore signal-mast of the railway; and then and there, sure and sudden, there dropped the black arm straight across and above their glistening path in the never-to-be-neglected order Stop!
The men appeared at the signal-mast of the pursuer, and rapidly made signals in the common code. "Skipper, do you see that? they're signalling," I cried out. "Get your glass up and take a sight"; but he had already done so. "It's the signal to lie to, and wait a boat," he said; "there's someone going aboard." The fulfilment of the reading was instant.
She circled and dodged, but all to no purpose; she could not escape that unblinking ray, which followed her, relentless as fate, revealing every detail on board her as distinctly as though she were under the light of day. That she was a destroyer was at once apparent; there could be no mistaking the long, low, clean-cut black hull, with the four squat funnels and the short signal-mast.
There, graceful and still, like a bird ready to spread its wings, she waited till, at the opening of the gates, a tug or two would hurry in noisily, hovering round her with an air of fuss and solicitude, and take her out into the river, tending, shepherding her through open bridges, through dam-like gates between the flat pier-heads, with a bit of green lawn surrounded by gravel and a white signal-mast with yard and gaff, flying a couple of dingy blue, red, or white flags.
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