The manners and customs of the Powers that Be may puzzle the ordinary man, but those whose duty it is to serve the said Powers know that their inconsistency is consistent—which is really not such a paradox as it sounds. Because of this and of the water-tight compartments into which the administrative body is divided, a number of destroyers was patrolling Irish waters at the same time that the High Olympians were, to all appearances, blandly unconscious of the German intrigue with certain Irish malcontents. Among this flotilla was the Knat, and her orders were to keep a sharp look-out for gun-runners, who, if rumour did not lie, were extremely busy about this time.

Nevertheless, although Lawless had been on duty for over a fortnight, not the ghost of a gun-runner had he, or any of his crew, seen, and the monotony of the work was becoming extremely irksome to all. One afternoon Lawless left Sub-Lieutenant Trent in charge of the bridge, and, going below, solaced himself with music and song till the bass string of his banjo snapped. It was at this moment that a bridge-messenger appeared with a "Beg parding, sir, but you're wanted on the bridge."

With a sigh of resignation, the Lieutenant flung his banjo on the settee and made his way to the bridge.

"Thought you'd like to have a squint at that Norwegian packet over there," said Trent, indicating a cargo steamer some distance off on the port bow with the Norwegian colours painted conspicuously on her hull amidships.

Lawless picked up the glasses and examined the approaching vessel.

"Signal her to stop," he said. "I'll board her myself and have a peep round; it'll be something to do."

The signal was made and the steamer immediately hove-to. Then a boat was lowered from the Knat, and, with Lawless in the stern-sheets, pulled towards the stranger.

"What ship are you?" called out the Lieutenant, as the boat came alongside.

"Krajero, Boston for Stavanger, with wheat," answered the officer on the bridge.

"I'm going to board you," said Lawless, whereupon the skipper of the Krajero obligingly lowered an accommodation-ladder over the side for the convenience of his visitor.

Upon examination, the ship's papers proved to be in order, but Lawless, determined to leave nothing to chance, ordered the hatch-covers to be removed. The captain complied, and the Lieutenant was permitted to look into the holds, both of which had loose grain up to the combings.

"You can proceed, Captain," said Lawless.

"Tanks, ver goot," answered the skipper, and, as soon as the Lieutenant had regained his boat, resumed his course.

"Nothin' doing," said Lawless, when he returned to the Knat. "Business is dull, Trent."

The junior officer agreed. He had hoped that the Norwegian might prove to be a gun-runner or a disguised German commerce destroyer, or anything, in fact, that might have afforded a little excitement and a chance for a run ashore.

"I s'pose we'll just keep on footling about here till the blooming war's over," he growled. "Then someone'll wake up suddenly and discover that there's an obsolete destroyer with a crew of greybeards beating about the Irish coast."

But he was wrong there, as events soon proved. A couple of hours after Lawless had boarded the Norwegian steamer, a wireless message was received from the Captain of the cruiser-scout, Trojon, inquiring if a vessel called the Krajero had been sighted.

"Tell him 'yes,' and that, after examining her papers and cargo, I allowed her to proceed," said Lawless to the operator.

The message was duly transmitted, and a few minutes later a reply came:

"Captain of Trojon to Commander of Knat. Have stopped steamer Krajero, and, on examination, found that beneath her cargo of grain was a large number of mines, which she intended sowing in the Channel."

"Well, I'm damned!" ejaculated Lawless when he had read the message.

"No promotion this trip," commented Trent grimly.

Lawless, who was almost dancing with rage, tore the paper into shreds and cast them to the four winds of heaven.

"It'll be the talk of the Fleet!" he cried. "Every mother's son from the stokers to the Admiral will be sniggering over it, curse them. It shan't happen again, though! I'll search every boat I meet, from a dinghy to a liner. Lord, to think I've been bamboozled by a swab of a make-believe Norwegian skipper with a six-inch grin across his mug!"

He continued in the same strain for some time, vowing vengeance on all skippers who should henceforth attempt to deceive him in any manner whatsoever. Trent had much ado to keep from laughing, but as he was of a smaller stature than Lawless he deemed it safer to maintain a serious aspect.

But worse was to follow. Other ships had picked up the Trojon's message, and their captains took advantage of this to send ironic messages of congratulation to the luckless commander of the Knat. For some time the wireless operator was kept busy receiving and transcribing such messages as:

"Well done, Knat!"

"Is it true that you've been promoted?"

"What is the difference between a bushel of wheat and a contact-mine, and if not why not?"

At last Lawless could stand it no longer and, almost foaming at the mouth, hurried to the operator's room.

"Look here!" he shouted, "if you take down any more of those infernal messages I'll have you put in irons. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," answered the operator meekly.

The Lieutenant savagely stamped down the little iron ladder and gazed wrathfully around to see if any of the men had the suspicion of a grin on his face. But the men's countenances were almost preternaturally serious as they busied themselves with little odd jobs about the deck.

"What's the matter with the men, bos'n?" he growled. "They look like a company of funeral mutes."

"Oh, they're quite cheerful, sir," answered the bos'n apologetically. "I think the weather's a bit oppressive, sir."

Lawless went back to his cabin and found Trent on the settee, doubled up with laughter.

"Hullo, what's the matter with you?" he snapped.

"Read this," answered the Sub-Lieutenant, handing him a piece of paper; "it came just as you went on deck."

Lawless took the paper and read:

"Kite to Knat. When is a mine most to be feared? Answer: when it goes against the grain."

"Trent, I'll——," began the victim, but the junior officer had bolted on deck before the threat was finished.

To complete the Lieutenant's discomfiture, a message was received that night from the officer commanding the flotilla censuring Lawless for allowing the Krajero to proceed on her way without having thoroughly overhauled her cargo.

"That puts the lid on it," groaned the unhappy Lieutenant as he turned-in to try and forget his sorrows in sleep.

The result of all this was that, during the next few days, Lawless became the best-hated man in those waters. Not a ship came within sight but she was stopped and her cargo examined with irritating minuteness while the skipper stood by, helpless, but vowing to deluge the Admiralty with complaints. In his zeal Lawless as good as accused quite innocent passengers of being disguised Germans, much to the indignation of the parties concerned, who promised that the authorities should hear about his "unwarrantable officiousness and insulting behaviour," with much more to the same effect. And the worst of it was that he never once came across a trace of contraband for all his trouble.

But one evening, about a week after the Krajero episode, something did occur to break the monotony of searching harmless vessels and listening to the deep-throated profanities of outraged skippers. Lawless, being on the bridge scanning the horizon with his glasses, caught sight of a large motor fishing smack in the distance and, close alongside her, something which looked remarkably like the conning tower of a submarine. In another moment he had altered the course and was bearing down on her at full speed, the men standing by their guns, delighted at the prospect of a "scrap."

"It's a U boat sure enough," said Lawless, handing the binoculars to Trent.

"Yes, and she's holding up that fishing boat; trying to get information, I suppose."

Unfortunately, the submarine was well under the lee of the smack, and a shot at that distance was as likely to hit one as the other.

"Better hold your fire till you get a bit nearer, Trent," said Lawless reluctantly.

As the distance lessened, a puff of smoke issued from the vicinity of the submarine and a shell whistled over the Knat's bridge.

"Plant one in her conning tower," shouted Lawless to the chief gunner, who stood by the quick-firer just below the bridge. If the smack were hit it couldn't be helped; the risk must be taken.

There was a deafening report and, when the smoke cleared away the submarine had entirely disappeared. The inference was that she had submerged without suffering injury, for had the shot struck her she would certainly not have sunk as rapidly as all that.

"She's given us the slip all right," muttered the Lieutenant bitterly, and the gunner below the bridge echoed his remark in more pungent terms.

As the destroyer came up, a man on the smack's deck—obviously the skipper—hailed her.

"Can ye give us a tow?" he shouted.

"Cast a line aboard as we pass you," answered Lawless, for he knew better than to stop and parley while an enemy submarine was around waiting for a chance to discharge a torpedo.

Accordingly, a line attached to a towing rope was thrown from the smack to the destroyer as the latter surged past, and a minute or two later the fishing boat was heeling along in her wake. The skipper, standing in the bows, yelled the information that he had been held up by the submarine while trying to repair a defect in his engines. The U boat commander, after seizing his small stock of petrol, was questioning him concerning the whereabouts of a British cruiser known to be in these waters, when the Knat appeared. At sight of her the German officer jumped back on board his boat and, after firing one shot, closed the conning tower hatch. He, the skipper of the smack, could not say whether the destroyer's shot had taken effect, but was inclined to think that it had not.

With the derelict boat still in tow, Lawless put into the harbour of a small fishing village between Clonakilty and Castle-townsend, just as it was getting dark. There the tow rope was cast off and the skipper was told to come aboard the Knat as soon as he had dropped anchor some thirty yards or so distant.

The order having been carried out, the skipper duly came aboard and was invited into the cabin. Here he proceeded to give a fuller version of his encounter with the submarine. The German commander, he said, had given him and his crew three minutes in which to leave the smack, and they were about to get their boat out when the Knat arrived on the scene and saved the situation.

"Well, skipper, you'd better stay and have some dinner with us," said Lawless, when the skipper had finished his story.

"'Tis meself that'll be delighted to do that same, ye'r honour," answered the fisherman—an elderly man with twinkling grey eyes.

He proved to be a most interesting, if somewhat unpolished, guest, and kept the two officers in an almost continual state of mirth with his quaint anecdotes and stories. Not only that, but he was amazingly frank and cheerfully confessed that, in the early days of the National Volunteer movement, he had been profitably engaged in smuggling arms into Munster.

"And now?" queried Lawless.

The old man shook his head knowingly.

"Shure, you fellows have spoilt the game entoirely," he answered. "The risk is too great and, be the same token, I'm getting too old for that business."

"But you know something about it," suggested the Lieutenant.

The skipper winked.

"Now look here," went on Lawless, "I don't ask you to betray your friends, but just give me a hint—you understand?—and if it leads to anything I'll see that you lose nothing by it."

"Is it afther timpting me ye'd be, sorr?" asked the skipper with seeming indignation.

"I'm merely suggesting you should give me a hint."

"An' phwat 'ud become of me if the bhoys got wind of it, will ye tell me?"

"There's no reason why they should. You may be sure I shall never breathe a word."

After a few moments' reflection the skipper looked cautiously round the cabin and then leant over the table to Lawless.

"Have ye iver heard tell av Mike Mahoney, sorr?" he asked in a whisper.

"Rather! He's supposed to be the cleverest gun-runner in the south of Ireland."

"Ye may say so, an' he's a black-hearted son av Satan; he is that. He's owed me three pounds since St. Patrick's Day two years gone, and it's meself that's niver loikely to see the colour av it. Now I'd be glad to have ye take a rise out of that blackguard."

"Tell me where he's to be found."

"Has ye'r honour heard tell av a little fishing village be the name av Ballyoon betwixt here and Mizzen Head?"

"No, but I'll soon find it."

"Then it's there that Mahoney—may the divil get his sowl—has his headquarters. Many's the noight that he's crept up past Sherkin Island an' into Roaringwather Bay wid a cargo of rifles and ammunition."

"Then it's his regular port of call, so to speak?"

"Indade it is. Divil a wan, save the bhoys, suspect it, least av all the Rivinue people, and it's a nice little fortune Mike's been piling up for himself, so it is. More'n wance he's said to me, 'Pat Rossan,' he's said, 'ye're an old hand at the game. Phwy don't ye jine in wid me and the rist av the bhoys?' But I'm too old for that now, as I tould him, and I don't want to ind me days wid me back against a wall."

"Thanks very much, Mr. Rossan," said Lawless. "I'll see that you lose nothing by this."

"Indade I shall be glad av any little hilp ye can give me, sorr, for phwat wid submarines and restrictions there's moighty little profit to be got out of the fishing these days."

As the skipper was about to leave, Trent drew Lawless aside.

"I'd keep an eye on that old buffer if I were you," he whispered. "Ten to one he'll try to creep out to-night and warn this same Mike Mahoney."

"Good idea," answered the Lieutenant, and turned to his visitor.

"I must ask you to hoist a riding-light when you get aboard your hooker, Mr. Rossan, and keep it burning all night," he said.

"To be sure if ye'r honour wishes it," replied the skipper, and then, after shaking hands with both officers, slipped into his dinghy alongside and pulled back to his smack.

As soon as he had gone Lawless gave orders that a constant watch was to be kept on the smack's riding-light throughout the night. If it was extinguished or was seen to move towards the harbour mouth the fact was to be reported to him immediately.

It was between three and four o'clock on the following morning when the Lieutenant was wakened from a sound sleep by Trent.

"Hullo, what's the row?" he asked, drowsily.

"That blessed smack has skedaddled during the night."

"What!" ejaculated the Lieutenant, now fully awake.

"It's a fact."

Lawless sprang out of his bunk and began hurriedly to pull on his garments.

"I gave strict orders that she was to be watched all night," he said. "How is it they've been disobeyed?"

"They haven't; come on deck and see for yourself," answered Trent.

On reaching the deck Lawless saw at a glance how he had been outwitted. On the spot where the smack had been anchored floated a barrel with a tall spar stuck in it and, at the top of this, glowing dimly in the morning light, was a lantern.

"I see," he murmured.

Taking advantage of the darkness—for there had been no moon—the skipper of the smack had fixed up this dummy riding-light in order to deceive the watchers aboard the destroyer and then extinguished the real one. This done, he must have got a row-boat with muffled oars to tow him out of the harbour, thus obviating the necessity for using the engines and so warning the Knat's men of his manoeuvres. It was an ingenious trick, cleverly carried out.

"We must get under way at once," said Lawless. "We may catch up with the rascal and collar his pal Mahoney before he has time to warn him. Evidently that's his dodge."

Half an hour later the Knat was steaming in a westerly direction with the Lieutenant on the bridge, scanning the coast-line through his glasses. Presently a smudge was seen against the horizon and this gradually resolved itself into a destroyer steaming at full speed towards them. As she approached the Knat a signal hoist broke at her masthead, and when within hailing distance the two vessels slowed down. The newcomer was the Kite and her commander stood on the bridge with a megaphone in his hands.

"D'you happen to have sighted a fishing smack, ketch-rigged?" he inquired.

"Seen a whole fleet of them," answered Lawless.

"The one I'm after had her number painted out and when last seen was using a brown mainsail and a staysail half brown and half white."

"Phew!" whistled Trent softly and added in a whisper to Lawless, "it's the hooker that slipped her cable last night."

The Lieutenant nodded.

"What about her?" he asked, addressing the commander of the Kite.

"Why she's a gun-runner skippered by a ruffian called Mike Mahoney. We've just learnt that she took on a cargo of guns and ammunition from a German submarine yesterday and landed them early this morning in some creek near Galley Head."

"And got clear away?" asked Lawless in well-simulated astonishment.

"Yes; that chap's the most slippery cuss in all Ireland."

"I'll keep a look-out for her," answered Lawless. "Wish you luck."

And, waving his hand in farewell to the Kite, the Lieutenant rang down "full-speed" and was off before the other could ask any more inconvenient questions.

"Thank the Lord he suspected nothing," said Lawless as the Kite faded away in the distance. "If it came out that I'd actually towed that Mahoney blackguard and his cargo of contraband into harbour and then let him go, there'd be the very deuce to pay."

"And to think," chuckled Trent, "that you entertained Mr. Mahoney alias Rossan to dinner! I'll bet he chortled when—"

"Mr. Trent, attend to your duties," snapped Lawless and left the bridge.