"Let out the sail," he said, "and climb into the boat behind, but give me the lantern first."
Yanni handed him the dark lantern first, which they had lit before starting, and, pulling the boat in under the stern of the caique, jumped on board. Under the full-spread sail they drew rapidly near the doomed ship, and when they were within a hundred yards they heard its rudder splash and stir like some great fish under water, and the speed slackened as she turned south. Mitsos, who had never felt cooler or more collected in his life, went straight on, so as to strike her sideways below the huge, overhanging stern. He calculated to perfection the speed they were going and the distance, and just as Yanni became aware of a great black thing with a panel of light in it overhead, he heard a crash, and broken glass fell over him. The mast of the caique had gone right through one of the windows in the stern. Their boat gave a great lurch, and Mitsos sprang off into the small boat astern, still with the lantern in his hand.
"Quick, quick!" he said, "that I cannot do."
Yanni jumped up, and, crouching beneath the stern of the caique, thrust the lantern open into a heap of brushwood impregnated with turpentine. It caught and flared up in a moment, and while from the Turkish ship came sudden confused sounds and runnings to and fro, the flame leaped along the caique from stern to bow, ran like a flash of lightning up the sail, and was driven by the wind with a roar right into the broken panel. Next moment Mitsos, having cast loose their smaller boat, pushed off backward into the darkness, and both the boys, seizing their oars, rowed for life. But the blaze between them and the ship had made it impossible for those on board to see them, and after five minutes or so Yanni, blown and streaming with perspiration, saw Mitsos drop his oar and sink down to the bottom of the boat and lie there as if dead.
"BOTH THE BOYS, SEIZING THEIR OARS, ROWED FOR LIFE"
Round three-quarters of the horizon was dense darkness, inhabited only by the rushing wind, but in front a column of fire rose up, crowned with clouds of smoke. The flames leaped up over the stern of the ship, the steersman fled for his life farther forward, and left to itself the ship swung round into the wind, dragging its destroyer behind it, the flames from which, driven straight before it, licked greedily round the timbers of its victim. In a few moments the tar in the seams began to melt and run, breaking into flame like burning sealing-wax, and the planks of the upper decks were parted a fraction of an inch as it oozed out. Then the timbers themselves began to fizzle and crack, giving each moment new crevices and footholds for the fire, and the window where the mast of the caique had penetrated showed red burning lips, like a horrible square mouth. Volumes of smoke began to pour forward between the decks, driving those who were throwing unavailing water onto the flames to the upper deck, to make another hopeless attempt from there. The women and children ran forward with shrill screams, and could be seen standing like a flock of frightened sheep huddled together. Then a boat was let down, but before it touched the water a tongue of flame sprang out from one of the big, square port-holes below it, driving upward so fiercely that those who were holding the ropes let go and it fell splashing into the sea. Soon with a crash the aft part of the deck, all charred and no longer able to support its own weight, fell in a huge shower of embers and half-burned or blazing pieces of timber, and again the flames leaped higher and moved forward along the ship. The iron davits supporting the boat corresponding to that which had fallen into the sea, still stood firm, and the boat itself hung unburned for some ten minutes, till the fire reaching up caught it, and set it blazing, hanging there, apart and separate from the greater conflagration like a huge burning signal of distress. Soon, however, the side of the ship which held the davits fell in, and the boat dropped blazing into the water. The fire had now reached to the main-mast, and in a moment caught the sail. Then after a few seconds, in which the smoke redoubled itself, the great sheet of canvas caught and flared up in a pillar of flame. Great burned pieces fell off and strewed the deck; other lighter fragments were borne away like birds in the wind and fled seaward, flapping and blazing. Then, with another crash, a second portion of the deck fell in, and, mingled with the noise the shrill chorus of despair from the women, rose higher and higher. Some jumped overboard and found their death in what might have been their safety; others ran up and down the deck, which grew ever hotter and more blistered, and now scribbled over by lines of burning pitch; some seized up water-cans and buckets, and tried even then to stop the flames; and more than one man ran to where the flames were fiercest, preferring to die at once. Then without warning came the end. A frightful explosion tore the air; the ship parted in the middle, for the flame had reached the powder-magazine, and in smoke and steam and human cries she went down, and a minute afterwards there was silence but for the wind and blackness.