In an instant all was wild excitement and the face of Andy Greggs grew pale as death.
But one person on the submarine craft was cool, and that was Oscar Pelham.
As he saw the shell approaching he stepped to the rear end of the tiny enclosed deck of which the Holland boasted.
Here was a hidden keyboard, connected by electricity with the moving power of the strange craft.
He touched one of the tiny steel buttons.
"Hold fast!" he cried, and as everybody clutched the railing or threw himself flat, the Holland fairly jerked forward, rising two feet higher than she had been lying, by the action of the sudden spurt. Then she continued to go ahead.
Zip! Bang!
Down came the shell from the French cruiser in the exact spot where the Holland had been lying. It sent the water flying in all directions, while the noise of the explosion was deafening.
The submarine torpedo-boat destroyer had gotten away a distance of a hundred yards, and some of the fragments of the shell rained down upon the deck like hail.
The forward rush had made the Holland ship considerable water, and for the instant it looked as if the submarine craft would be swamped.