Never had the "Deutschland" travelled so swiftly as in those early morning hours of the 3rd August. With marvellous speed she raced on, leaving two broad streaks of foam on either side.

The engines rumbled in perfect rhythm, the combustion was working without a flaw, and the exhaust showed not the slightest cloud, so that even Herr Kiszling was thoroughly contented, and in a moment of unconscious tenderness nearly stroked the shaft of his beloved engines....

When the sun rose the coast had long disappeared from sight in the distance in a grey mist, and there was no vessel of any kind to be seen.

We remained on the surface and raced on like the very devil. How much we owed to our engines! On our arrival at Baltimore, after our long and difficult journey they had been still in perfect condition; no repairs were necessary, and we could have made the return journey immediately without their being overhauled. And yet the engines had been obliged to work under quite unknown conditions, under conditions which like that of the terrible temperature in the Gulf Stream had made the very highest and most unforeseen demands on every part of the machinery.

It can be easily understood that hitherto there had been no opportunity of testing the working capabilities of oil motors in an outside temperature of 127 degrees Fahrenheit. Such a contingency could never have been foreseen in the construction of our type of boat, and the fact that our motors never struck, that not the least hitch arose, proves the excellence of the construction and the perfect workmanship of the dockyard.

Thus we continued on our way, and only too soon found ourselves in the damp heated atmosphere and heavy air of the Gulf Stream, with all its beautiful phenomena and peculiarities, its electrically laden air and stormy sea. With closed hatches and heat in the boat we faced it once more. And the Stream would not even help to push us along on our course, as we had hoped.

All hardships were, however, borne with light hearts this time. We had left the danger zone behind us, and were homeward bound. Moreover, the sea had become calmer the nearer we approached the area of the Gulf Stream.

On the evening of the second day it had become possible to open all the deck hatches again. Hardly had we begun to rejoice that the fresh air would now make conditions below deck bearable once more, when suddenly the order came, "Close hatches!" "Submerge!"

A steamer had appeared and was rapidly approaching so directly in our course that we could not possibly have avoided her above water. When we rose to the surface again an hour later night had set in, and with it appeared a most marvellous natural phenomenon of sea phosphorescence of unearthly splendour.

We had submerged in a calm dark sea; we now arose to an ocean of flame. A sea phosphorescence had set in of an intensity and glow such as I had never before experienced, and which is probably only to be found on the borders of the Gulf Stream.

During our rise, and when we were at about 2 fathoms below the surface, it seemed as if we were working upwards through a glowing realm of sparkling transparency. Shortly before the conning-tower arose above water I glanced round astern, and saw the entire hull of the boat, with the stern like a dark mass pushing its way through the glowing element. A fiery whirlpool radiated from the propeller, and every movement of the boat aroused the wildest phosphorescence—intensive flames, sprays of sparks, and fiery streaks in the surrounding waters.

Above, a fresh breeze had set in and whipped the seething waters into glowing balls, while showers of sparkling foam covered the entire deck. As far as the eye could reach the surface of the sea was one pale glowing mass, through which our boat ploughed its way in furrows of fire.

We stood transfixed as the phenomenon increased in intensity with the sea and wind.

All the men off duty came up and stared out at this enchanting spectacle, little heeding the seas which swept over the deck, soaking many of them through to the skin. "It looks like fire, don't it? But blowed if it don't put yer pipe out," remarked our giant boatswain. A spurt had just extinguished his pipe for the third time, and he reluctantly decided to store the beloved stump carefully in his pocket.

But the "fire" grew wetter and wetter, and within half an hour the officers on duty and look-out stood once more alone up in the conning-tower.

When we got out of the Gulf Stream we had several days of stiff north-westerly winds and high seas, until, on the ——August, we ran into fine weather again.

On one of the following evenings the first officer on duty, Krapohl, was standing with Humke in the conning-tower scanning the horizon without ceasing, through the glasses, at a point where the pale sky seemed to merge into the sea without any observable boundary line.

"Light ahead," announced Humke suddenly.

"If you mean that star, I've noticed it already," the officer replied, calmly lowering his glasses.

"Wal, I dunno, but that there ain't no star, Herr Krapohl," the sailor replied, unabashed.

The two called out to me, and I came expectantly out of the tower, took the glasses and then laughed.

"Humke, you're on the wrong track!" for I noticed high up above the horizon a faint white light which stood too high, judging by its strength, to be a ship's light.

The boatswain stolidly maintained his opinion, however.

"Cap'n, that there ain't no star." I handed him the glasses which he, however, put aside at once, remarking:

"Ye can't see nothink properly with them things."

He shut his eyes tightly, then took another sharp look and said in decided tones:

"That ain't no star; that be a light!"

We stared before us with increased sharpness till I was able at last to make out through the glasses a red glow which now became visible to the right of the white light. Now we knew that a steamer was approaching us.

At first I held her to be a small vessel, particularly as, to begin with, the height of the two lights differed but slightly—the red port light of the steamer was not much below the white light.

But soon I was surprised to observe how noticeably the red light moved, that is to say, how quickly the space between the two lights appeared to increase.

From this there was only one possible conclusion to be drawn, and that was that the vessel was approaching with extraordinary rapidity.

While I was considering this, and picturing it to myself as a swiftly travelling destroyer, I discovered at a fair distance behind the two lights something that looked like a white moving ray, or like a faintly illuminated wave.

We could not make out what this meant till I decided that this wave must belong to the lights themselves, as they moved together and kept pace with each other. And a few minutes later there appeared tremblingly on the strong lens of the glasses the faint outline of a mighty steamer, which with elaborate superstructure was approaching in the dark night. The white ray of light was her stern water, which owing to the colossal length of the ship was only visible at a considerable distance from her side lights.

For some minutes longer we continued to stare, then we discovered four towering funnels, and were soon convinced that we had a big Cunard liner in front of us which was racing up in semi-darkness, only showing her head-lights.

It really was a ghostly apparition, to observe how the mighty darkened ship raced on through the night. There is not much need to be romantically inclined in order to picture this meeting with the "Flying Dutchman," while Humke expressed his feelings in the words: "Lor', ain't she just a beauty, lads!"

"Full speed ahead!" and with "helm hard astarboard" we slipped away from the course of the mighty Cunarder. All the men of the watch off duty meanwhile had come up to get a view of her from the deck and hatches.

In spite of a sharp look-out nothing appeared in sight during the next few days. The weather keeping fine our homeward journey—even more than when we were outward-bound—assumed the character of a peaceful, uneventful business voyage.

It was now that we first began fully to appreciate the convenient and practical inner fittings of the whole boat, and particularly our cabins and cosy little mess-room. Often as we sat round the table at mess while the gramophones played gaily, we thought with gratitude of those who had not only invented the seaworthy shape of our boat, but had fitted her interior up so that a life of comparative comfort and ease was possible even under the sea.

When on these occasions our gallant Stucke, with his blonde white hair, his honest face full of earnest gravity, and his habitually surprised expression placed a bottle of good red Californian wine in front of us, as we lay comfortably "somewhere" at the bottom of the sea, while overhead, at a height of X fathoms, a hearty wind was blowing, it needed little imagination to picture oneself as a second Captain Nemo, who with his highly modern Nautilus could probe the depths, and snap his fingers at the injustice and tyranny of a certain people—provided, that is to say, one had read Jules Verne.

For I must here confess, what I had hitherto carefully concealed from everyone, that it was only as captain of a submarine trader on my return journey from America that I was enabled to make good a very sad deficiency in my education. The chance I had wasted in my youth I now came across at the age of forty-nine in the steel body of the "UDeutschland," of making myself acquainted with Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea.

The book had been sent me while I was at Baltimore through the kindness of an American friend. It is a book—how shall I describe it?—of incitement and emulation. I read it with the greatest interest.

The rest of our return journey is soon told. We travelled on smoothly and peacefully homewards, avoiding a few distant steamers above water—in which little game we had gradually become extremely well practised—and meeting on the whole with good weather, some mist, and much smooth sea.

One afternoon I was sitting working at the writing-table in my cabin, when suddenly I heard from the control-room close by the order "20 to starboard" repeated. Immediately after came "10 to port," whereupon, without waiting to hear any more, I hurried on deck.

There a strange sight awaited me. All around, as far as the eye could reach, the sea was covered with a mass of dark, floating oil casks through which we had to steer our way.

At first I took the black, weird-looking objects, which danced up and down on the waves before us, for a mine-field, until the characteristic shape of the sharp angular casks, or so-called barrels, and their contents which had spread partly over the water, testified to their harmlessness. Nevertheless we had to steer carefully through this strange plantation, as the area was too wide a one to avoid without going considerably out of our course. We estimated the number of casks that were visible to us as at least a thousand.

"Fine practice," remarked Krapohl, "for the elegance with which we shall twist through the English mine-fields later on. I think we might risk the return through the English Channel."

We went on, therefore, at half-speed to port—starboard—port, for over an hour. Scattered parts of vessels were to be seen on the water, possibly the results of wrecks or mines.

We must by this time have gradually come within the sphere of the English look-out ships. The watch was doubled, everyone standing at their submerging stations.

From time to time we noticed vessels whose attention we avoided by submerging or altering our course. One warship, apparently a small English cruiser, we allowed no possibility of seeing us by immediately diving. When, after an hour's undersea journey, we again rose slowly to the surface, we saw from a depth of 6½ fathoms, through the periscope, another English ship, and went down again to 11 fathoms, and this was repeated three times in succession.

At noon we rose at last for good, emptied the tanks, and then travelled at top speed over the water.

Favoured by the fine weather we approached our goal with considerable rapidity; and on August—— at eight o'clock in the evening, we saw a circle of white lights all round the horizon.

Our natural fear was, of course, that we were surrounded; if we turned to starboard we saw those accursed lights, to port—there they were too.

Finally our excellent Zeiss glasses removed our fears that at the last moment with the homeland already in sight we had fallen into a trap. The twilight was still clear enough to allow us to see and recognize from the construction of the uncanny-looking ships that only some harmless Dutch fishing boats lay before us.