"Not only that, but she lies too low. On end, the way she is now, she's probably drawing thirty-five or forty feet of water. She might stick in a channel somewhere and that would be worse than getting rid of her out here."
The boats raced back to the ship and the survivors were handed up to the Miami where the surgeon immediately took charge. All preparations had been made, meanwhile, for the placing of mines and Eric was told off in the boat under the second lieutenant to see to the placing of the charges.
This was work to which Eric was unaccustomed and he watched with considerable interest the gunner's handling of the mines. It was easy enough to place the charges in the upper works of the stern where they would be sure to blow that part of the ship to pieces, but so much of the forward portion of the hulk was under water that the problem there was more difficult. In order to make sure of the job, five mines were set and connected with each other by electric wiring. A long strand of insulated wire was then carried to the boat, over a hundred feet in length.
At a signal given him by the lieutenant, Eric pressed the button. There was a tremendous roar as a waterspout shot up from the surface of the sea. As though some vast leviathan had passed underneath the old bark and shouldered her out of the water, the long black hull heaved herself up slowly. She seemed to hang poised for a fraction of a second on the surface of the water as if, in her death agony, she had for a moment thought of her old life when, under press of sail, she flew bounding over the billows, defying the very elements which at last had worked her ruin. Only for a moment she hung there, then with a dull crash she broke her back. The bow plunged downward with a sullen plunge, but the stern still held poised. Then, quite suddenly, the air imprisoned in the hull broke free and slowly, almost, it seemed, with dignity, the remainder of the vessel sank forever beneath the surface of the waters.
It was the end of the Luckenback and somewhere at the bottom of the sea her distorted steel plating marks the spot where rest the nine members of her crew lost before the rescuing Coast Guard cutter hove in sight.
CHAPTER XI
THE WRECKERS OF THE SPANISH MAIN
"Well, Eric," said Homer Tierre to his friend, as they stood together one evening a few days after the rescue of the survivors of the Luckenback, watching the phosphorescence of the sea, "we're getting down to the old Spanish Main, now."
"Isn't that a great word for bringing up ideas!" exclaimed Eric in reply. "It makes one think of the old stories we used to read as kids, of the black flag with the skull and crossbones and all that sort of thing. Too bad there aren't any pirates left!"