Harris stretched both hands out straight before him. One hand closed about the arm of the German to his right. The other clutched the second man by the throat. Harris pulled the man he held by the arm close; then released his grip, but before the German could stagger away, seized him, too, by the throat.
"Now I've got you," he said.
Blow after blow the Germans rained upon his face and shoulders, kicking out with their feet the while. Harris paid no more attention to these than he would have to the taps of a child.
But the Englishman felt his strength waning fast. It was with an effort that he staggered across the deck. At the rail he paused for a moment, gathering his strength for a final effort.
Then, still holding a German by the throat with each hand, he leaped into the sea.
Once, twice, three times the three heads appeared on the surface and a spectator could have seen that Harris retained his grip. Then the three sank from sight.
And so passed the former pugilistic champion of the British fleet, brave in death as he had been in life. The waves washed over the spot where he had gone down.
CHAPTER XXX
THE UNKNOWN UNMASKS
With the coming of dawn the three figures in the little motor boat gazed back in the direction from whence they had come. There they could still make out the distant shape of the Bismarck. She rode quietly in the water, and there was nothing about her appearance to tell the three in the motor boat of the terrible struggle that was raging even at that moment.