Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1906-12-13
CHAPTER XXu-(Continued.

CHAPTER XxII.-t CONTINUED
No man has ever looked on a more aw-
full sight We had struck the battleship
low amidships-we had crashed through
the thinnest coat of her steel. She had
heeled right over from the shock, so that
the guns had cast free from the carriages,
and the seas had filed her. Thus for
one terrible minute she lay, and then,
with a heavy lurch, she rolled beneath
the waves and there was left but thirty
or forty struggling souls, who battled for
their lives with the great rollers OF the
Atlantic. OF these a few reached the side
of our ship and were shot there as they
clung to the ladder.
For ourselves we lay, our bows split
with the shock, our engine room IN fear
full disorder. The other warships were
yet some distance away; but they opened
fire upon US at hazard, and, of the first
three shells which fell, two cut our decks
and sent clouds of splinters of wood and
of human flesh flying in the smoke-laden
air. At the fifth shot, a gigantic crash
resounded from below, and the stokers
rushed above with the news that the fore
stoke hold had three feet of water in it.
The hands received the news with deep
groan. They beloved like bulls at Black
they refused all orders. He shot down
man after man, while | crouched for safe
| ty in the tower; and they became but
| fiercer. Our end was evidently near
Anon they turned upon the captain and
myself, and fired volleys upon the coming
tower; or, in their terrible frenzy, they
pitched themselves into the sea.
Through all this our one engine work,
/ ed; and so slowly did the great ironclad
draw upon us that the end of it all came
before they could reach US. Suddenly the
men rushed to the boats and cast them
loose. Fighting with the dash of mad
men, they crowded the launch, they
swarmed the jolly-boat and the lifeboat
| We watched their insane efforts as boat
after boat put away and was swamped
leaving the men to drown. When
/ o'clock came, Black and Karl and myself
were alone upon the great ship. Black
pulled me by the arm and said:
! boy, they've left nothing but the
dinghy. The old ships done; and it's
/ time you left her.
"And your" / asked.
He looked at me and at Karl. He
followed me slowly, as one in dream, to
the davits aft, and freed the last of the
boats. Then he went to his cabin, and to
the rooms below; and helped him to put
a couple of kegs of water in the frail
craft, with some biscuit, which we dashed
| When all was ready, the captain went
| to the engine room and brought Karl to
! the top of the ladder; but there the Ger
man stayed, nor did threats or entreaties
move him.
Hell die with the ship said Black,
land l don't know that he isn't wise -
but he held out his hand to the genius of
his crime, and after a great grip the two
men parted.
For ourselves, we stepped on the frail-
est craft with which men eyer faced the
Atlantic, and at that moment the first OF
the ironclads fred another shell at the
nameless ship. 1t was a crashing shot,
| but it had come too late to serve justice,
or to wreck the ship of mystery; for Karl
| had let the hydrogen into the cylinders un-
checked. And in a cascade of fire, light
ing the sea for many miles, and making
as day the newly fallen night, the golden
| citadel Kissed over the water for one mo-
ment, then plunged headlong, and was no
more.
A fierce fire 1t was, lighting sea and
sky-a mighty holocaust; the roar of
great confagration; the end of a mon
strous dream. And l thought of another
| fire and another face-the face of Mar
tin Hall, who had seen the finger of
Almighty God in his mission and l said,
His work is done "
But Black, clirging to the dinghy, wept
as a man stricken with great grief. and
he cried so that the coolest heart might
have been moved
MY ship, my ship!''