“How far out do you want to go, sir!” asked Captain Jack, as the Navy lieutenant took a seat beside him in the tower, after Eph and the sailors had gone below.

“We want to be sure to be well out of the path of coastwise vessels,” replied Danvers.  “That’s the main thing, you know.  We can’t take any risk of sinking a merchantman while we’re having our fun.”

“With this tow, then, it will be three o’clock before we get out where we really ought to be, sir.”

“That will give us at least two hours of good daylight,” nodded Mr. Danvers.  “Of course you know this coast well enough to pick your way back after dark?”

“I’d run the craft five times the distance, under water, and hit the harbor without thought of an accident,” spoke young Benson, seriously, and with no thought of boasting.

“Jove, my young friend, if you can do a thing like that, you’re a genius at the work,” muttered Danvers, after a swift, side glance at Skipper Jack.

“I’ve done as much before,” laughed Jack.  “Either of my friends could do it, for that matter.”

“Then you’re veritable young kings of the deep!” declared Lieutenant Danvers, heartily.

“Oh, we’re not wonders,” smiled Jack, goodhumoredly; then added, more seriously, “If we really do anything worth while, my friends and I, we’re to be regarded simply as the products of constant practice.”

“You’re modest enough about 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.”