"Now," said the Commander from his platform, "you can disembark."
"What?" inquired the Lieutenant, not quite grasping the situation.
"You must get on that buoy," answered the German. "If you're not washed off before morning you'll probably be rescued by one of your own ships."
Lawless, as he gazed at the plunging buoy, felt his heart sink. Tired out as he was, he strongly doubted his ability to cling on to the buoy for an hour, let alone a whole night.
"Look here," he said, "you'd much better have chucked me overboard and done with it."
"Oh no, we Germans don't murder our prisoners," replied the other sardonically. "If you get washed away, that's not my fault. As you English say, 'It's up to you.'"
"Hanged if I'll ever try to save the life of a German again," said Lawless bitterly.
"Come now, Herr Lieutenant, I can't stay here all night!" cried the Commander.
There was nothing for it but to obey, and so Lawless, with the aid of the rope, managed to reach the small, oscillating platform and grip the iron stanchion which supported the spherical cage. Then a man on the submarine gave the rope a jerk, it slipped off the buoy, and the _U_ boat stole away in the darkness.
It did not take Lawless very long to realise the full gravity of his position. He calculated that at least six hours must elapse before it became light enough for him to see, or be seen by, passing ships, and by that time he would probably be dead. As for making signals in the darkness, that was impossible, for he had nothing to make them with--not even a revolver. There was, of course, a faint chance that the _Knat_ might make a search for him and perhaps discover him before it was too late, but it was far more likely that, assuming he had been drowned, Trent would proceed southwards.
Still, although he felt almost hopeless, the Lieutenant clung with grim tenacity to the iron standard, but for which he would have been washed off the slippery platform in a few moments, while across the wild waste of black waters came the dismal knell of the bell-buoy. The sound did not cheer him--in fact, it struck him as being unpleasantly prophetic.
"I wish," he murmured, "I could silence that damned thing."
Then he had an inspiration. If he could manage to swim to the bell-buoy and muffle the clapper some of the patrol boats in the neighbourhood would be bound to notice its silence and proceed to investigate the cause. The sound of the bell was of such importance to navigation in these waters that it would be missed almost immediately.