Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/266

240 The other ship seemed to hang as if wedged in the gap she had made, but before the officers of the Wasdale could reach the saloon deck the hideous, rending noise was renewed. The black bows of the stranger wrenched themselves loose, slid clear, and with a sobbing roar the sea rushed in as water falls over a dam. The withdrawn mass ground alongside, tearing woodwork into kindling, and then began to melt softly into the fog. Captain Arendt clambered back to his bridge, shouting as he ran:

"Ship ahoy, you! You have sunk us. Stand by to safe life. Get out mit your boats. Blow your vistle. You pig swine of a !"

Without reply the slayer faded like a phantom and was gone. From far down in the Wasdale's hold came a sound which made her captain thrill to feel that discipline had stood its first grim test. Collision doors in bulkheads were grinding shut with the mutter of far-off thunder.

The electric lights on deck and in the saloons had been snuffed out. The ship was in darkness almost everywhere. From