“How?”

“Hal Hastings and I can swim over, and can hold the women up if they have the nerve to leap overboard.”

“Those brutes might fire on you, and the women, but it’s worth trying,” decided the Naval officer, instantly.  “Over with you, then!”

Captain Jack waited only long enough to shed coat and cap, then sprang to the rail.  Hal was with him, instantly.

“Sir,” bellowed Commander Ennerling, “Have your women folks jump overboard.  We’ll pick them up in the water.  Be quick about it!”

There were a few hurried words in the little group of four aft on the steam yacht.  Then, with the “Pollard” running in closer, so that a bare fifty feet separated the two craft—­Mr. Farnum at the submarine’s wheel—­Jack Benson plunged overboard, followed by Hal.  The girl aboard the yacht leaped at once, the older woman following quickly.

“Get us, too, if you can,” shouted the white haired man at the yacht’s stern.  “We can swim a little.”

Both craft were still going ahead at about fourteen knots, but, as the two men jumped Lieutenant Commander Briscoe and Lieutenant McCrea plunged overboard to get them.

Now Jacob Farnum rang for the reversing of the engine, and the submarine, first pausing, began to glide backward, then stopped altogether.

From the steam yacht went up another hoarse cheer, the mutineers dancing like demons, discharging their revolvers into the air.  All this while the yacht steamed steadily away from the scene.

The girl was sinking for the second time as Jack Benson, with a forward swoop, shot one arm under her.

“You won’t go down now,” he called, cheerily.  “Keep cool and just do what I ask you.”

The older woman, buoyed up by a greater spread of skirts, had not sunk below the surface at all by the time that Hal Hastings reached her.

“All just as it ought to be,” hailed Hal, blithely.  “Don’t be at all afraid, madam.  Porpoise is my middle name, and you can’t sink while I have you.”

The work of the two Naval officers who had plunged overboard was easier.  Both of the men who had leaped from the yacht’s stern rail were able to swim.  Briscoe and McCrea merely reached them and swam alongside.

David Pollard had ropes over the side of the submarine in a jiffy.  It was easy work for seafaring men to climb these ropes over the sloping, easy side.  It was scarcely more difficult to get the women up in safety.

“Let the ladies go below to the port stateroom,” called Mr. Farnum.  “They can disrobe, rub down and get in between blankets in the berths.  Their men folks can take care of ’em.”

“I’m the steward, sir, of the ‘Selma,’ the yacht that’s ahead,” explained the man in white duck.  “I’ll help them below at once, sir.”

“We can have hot coffee in seven minutes,” Mr. Farnum continued.  “Captain Benson, if you’ll take the wheel again, I’ll go below and get to work in the galley.”