"The air-ship! The air-ship!"
Hardly had the words left his lips when a shell from the torpedo-boat struck the Lurline under the quarter, and ripped one of her plates out like a sheet of paper. The next instant the engineer rushed up on deck, crying—
"The bottom's out of her! She'll go down in five minutes!"
Tremayne, who was the only man on deck save the look-out, ran out of the wheel-house, dived into the cabin, and a moment later reappeared with Natas in his arms, and followed by his two attendants. Then, without the loss of a second, but in perfect order, the quarter-boat was manned and lowered, and pulled clear of the ill-fated Lurline just as she pitched backwards into the sea and went down with a run, stern foremost.
The air-ship, coming up at a tremendous speed, swooped suddenly down from a height of two thousand feet, and slowed up within a thousand yards of the torpedo-boat. A projectile rushed through the air and landed on the deck of the Frenchman. There was a flash of greenish flame, a cloud of mingled smoke and steam, and when this had drifted away there was not a vestige of the torpedo-boat to be seen. Then a few fragments of iron splashed into the water here and there, and that was all that betokened her fate.
CHAPTER XXII.
ARMED NEUTRALITY.
Hardly had the Lurline disappeared than the air-ship was lying alongside the boat, floating on the water as easily and lightly as a seagull, and Natas and his two attendants, Tremayne, and the three men who had been saved from the yacht, were at once taken on board.
It would be useless to interrupt the progress of the narrative to describe the welcoming greetings which passed between the rescued party and the crew of the Ithuriel, or the amazement of Arnold and his companions when Natasha threw her arms round the neck of the almost helpless cripple, who was rifted over the rail by Tremayne and his two attendants, kissed him on the brow, and said so that all could hear her—