Aboard the sinking German vessel all was confusion. Men rushed hither and thither in wild excitement. Officers shouted hoarse commands. Men scrambled wildly about and jumped madly for the life boats as they were launched. So great was the panic that two of the small boats were overturned and the men thrown into the sea.
“They’ll be drowned!” exclaimed Frank. He turned to Lord Hastings. “Cannot we rescue them, sir?”
“It is impossible,” was the quiet response. “We have no room for them. We are carrying a full crew, as you know, and have no room for another man.”
“But it is terrible to let them drown,” protested Frank.
“True,” replied his commander, “and yet think how some of our merchant vessels have been sent to the bottom without warning and their crews to a watery grave, noncombatants though they were. It is retribution; no less.”
Frank was silent, but he stood watching the struggling German sailors with an anxious eye.
Now the officers aboard the sinking vessel had succeeded in gaining some semblance of order from the confusion that had reigned a few moments before, and the enemy was going about the work of launching the boats more coolly and successfully.
At last all the boats and the crew had left the ship—all but one man, who still stood calmly upon the bridge. This was the commander, who, rather than leave his ship, was preparing to go down with her. In vain did his officers from the boats call upon him to jump. To all their calls he turned a deaf ear, and stood calmly at his post, with folded arms.
Now the sinking vessel began to settle more swiftly. Suddenly she seemed to leap clear of the water, there came a thundering roar, and then, seeming to despair of her efforts to keep afloat, she dived, in another moment she disappeared and the waters of the North Sea closed with an angry swirl over the mighty German warship and her gallant commander.
“Well, she’s gone,” said Jack quietly.