Whir-r-r! Z-z-z! P-ff!
Bang!
From the port side there came something like a feeble cheer—a chorus of rough male voices and high female screams, timid and yet glad.
A new swing of our crazed leviathan disclosed the reason for this wavering, victorious cry. There were two more blobs of smoke on the horizon, and from different points on the Irish coast three huge birds were flying like messengers from some god. Moreover, the blob of smoke we had first seen now had a considerable stretch of the ocean behind her, and in front a parting of the spray like two white plumes as she tore in our direction.
“She sure is some little ripper!” came a dry Yankee voice in the group about life-boat No. 5.
“Thirty-five knots if it’s one.”
“Them ’planes’ll overtake her, though, and be on the spot as soon as she is.”
“Gosh! I’d like to see Fritzie then!”
“J’ever see a kingfisher sweep down on a gudgeon?”
“Gee-whiz! Look at Fritzie! Goin’ to submerge!”