Their levity so disgusted me that I longed to rush forward and attack the whole scheme. I had actually moved forward some steps when I felt a tight grip on my arm. I turned round sharply, to face Brandt, who had providentially sensed my project.
“Back, man! Are you mad? These men will stand no nonsense, and if you insult the captain, even his personal influence could not save you.”
Bah! it was hopeless. I slunk back with a feeling of utter helplessness. There was clearly nothing for it but to see the whole hideous affair out in silence. Still, indignation all but mastered me. What ruffians were these anarchists! “Cowards!” I hissed involuntarily, but by this time they were too absorbed in their lot-drawing to hear me. “Shut up, fool,” reiterated Brandt. “I warn you that you will be brained or chucked overboard if they hear you.” I bit my lips in despair. “Schwartz has it! Schwartz has it!” I heard Hartmann say at last—they were drawing the lots—“he strikes the first blow, and no better man could do it. Next, Norman; next——”
I walked away and leant on the bow railing, glad to be left alone. The hubbub continued for some time, when the men dispersed, almost all going below. Torn by useless emotions I gazed down at the mists that swam beneath us, striving to pierce the veil which separated us from the doomed ship. To tear myself away from the spot was impossible—the fascination of the projected crime was irresistible. Have you ever watched a scene in a slaughter-house, loathing it while nevertheless unable to avert your gaze? Possibly you have. Well, that situation is akin to the morbid curiosity which nailed me unwillingly to my post.
The mists were thinning around us, but I observed with some surprise that a dense cloud below us—cut off sharply from its now unsubstantial fellows—maintained its position relatively to the Attila unchanged. Evidently Hartmann was purposely lurking behind this barrier, and proposed to deliver his first blow on an absolutely unsuspecting victim. Looking more attentively I noted a thin longitudinal rift in this cloud through which could be seen, though dimly, the sea, and in this something dark and indistinct, no bigger than an ordinary pea. It was the ironclad!
The Attila began to sink rapidly—the rift lengthened and broadened as I gazed, the pea swelled into a two-masted, two-funnelled battle-ship with a trail of black smoke faintly decipherable in her wake. Down, down, down we dropped—we were now on the fringe of the upper surface of the cloud, and the great ship, now only some 300 feet below us, was revealing itself clearly to the eye. At this point our downward motion ceased, and the Attila began to describe short curves at the level of the screening cloud, now skimming over its dank masses, now flashing over the rift that stretched directly over her unsuspecting prey. Four evolutions of this sort had taken place, and now for the fifth time we were gliding over the rift, when I heard a cheer raised by some men on the lower gallery, and craning my head over the railing, saw something black flash through space and splash in a big green wave that was flinging itself against the vessel’s stern. It was the moment of the “first blow,” and—might the omen hold good!—the first blow had failed.
Again a curve over the rift, and once more a failure, at least so it seemed at first, for this time, again, a splash by the stern rejoiced me. But my satisfaction was momentary. A few seconds after I saw a cloud of smoke shoot upwards from the ironclad, followed by a deafening crash. The third bomb had told. And in the horrid confusion that followed, the Attila threw off her secrecy, slipped through the cloud, and floated down to the vessel like some huge bird of prey—the very embodiment of masterful and shameless power.
As the smoke cleared away, revealing the strange visitor from the clouds, the feelings of the officers and crew must have been as unique as they were terrible. Amazement, a sense of complete unpreparedness and helplessness, going along with the disastrous results of the explosion, must have unnerved even the boldest. The great battle-ship was wholly at the mercy of the foe that rode so contemptuously above it.
THE BATTLE-SHIP AT THE ‘ATTILA’S’ MERCY.