"They won't reach us. We'll go down as soon as the explosion is over," answered Captain Oscar.
He held his chronometer in his hand and was counting off the seconds.
The time was up!
As he put the watch in his pocket a deafening roar rent the air, and the German warship was seen to rise in the air and then fall, a broken and shapeless mass upon the waters.
Then came two other roars, one directly after the other, as the English vessel and the French ship-of-the-line caught it.
The explosion under the Philippe was the most perfect, for the craft was literally split to bits, not alone by the torpedo, but by the explosions of her various magazines. Everybody on this ship was killed but a cabin boy, who leaped overboard at the first noise, and was picked up by one of the smaller warships.
With the Terrible it was different. The English cruiser was an unusually large one, and to have cut her to pieces would have taken several torpedoes.
Inside of two minutes she sank, the majority of her crew leaping overboard as she went down.
Some of the sailors were caught in the suction created and went down with the warship, never to rise again.
An explosion under the ocean added to the panic, and many were killed by this.