Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/302

288 bound forward with waves of foam and spray running from her decks, and each plate on her straining as though the mighty force of the engines below would rend it from its fellows.

I had not before known the limit of her speed, or what she could do when driven as she then was; and the truth amazed me, while it filled me with a strange exultation. For we, who had dallied heretofore behind the other, sped beyond her as an express train passes the droning goods; and coming about, in a great circle, we descended upon her as a goshawk upon the quarry.

The machine-guns upon our decks were already cleared; the men were stripped, ready for the fray, as tigers for their food. Indeed, before I quite understood the purport bf the manoeuvre, we were passing the Bellionic at a distance of not more than fifty yards; and at that moment it seemed as if all the furies of hell were let loose upon our decks.

Screaming like wild beasts, the men turned the handles of the Maxim guns; the balls rained upon the defenceless liner as hail upon a sheepfold. I heard fierce curses and dull groans; I saw strong men reel and fall their length as death took them; the breeze bore to me the wailing of women and the sobs of children.

But we had done the foul work in the one passage, for the flag dropped at once upon the liner, and the signal was made to us to come aboard. We had gained a horrid triumph, if such