Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/353

Rh that no man was visible upon our decks, that our engines had ceased to move. We were motionless. Then in a second the bells rang out. There was again that frightful grating and tearing in the engine-room. The nameless ship came round to her helm with a mighty sweep: she foamed and plunged in the seas; she turned her ram straight at the other; and, groaning as a great stricken wounded beast, she roared onward to the voyage of death. I knew then the fearful truth: Black meant to sink the cruiser with his ram. I shall never forget that moment of terror, that grinding of heated steel, that plunge into the seas. Holding with all my strength to the seat of the tower, I waited for the crash, and in the suspense hours seemed to pass. At last, there was under the sea a mighty clap as of submarine thunder. Dashed headlong from my post, I lay bruised and wounded upon the floor of steel. The roof above me rocked; the walls shook and were bent; my ears rang with the deafening roar in them; seas of foam mounted before the glass; shrieks and the sound of awful rending and tearing drowned other shouts of men going to their death. And through all was the hysterical yelling of Black, his cursing, his defiance, his elation.

"Come and see," he roared, dragging me by the collar to the gallery; "come and see. They sink, the lubbers! They go to blazes every one of them. Look at their faces, the crawling scum.