Again and again the wireless chattered the cry for help. The guns thundered ahead. Suddenly there arose a rosy light in the sky, spreading through the fog in a wide wave of color.
“She’s blown up!” was the general and hopeless ejaculation from the crew of the destroyer.
“Her engines went that time, sure enough—and her boilers, too,” groaned Ensign MacMasters, who chanced to stand near the gun crew to which Whistler and Al belonged and where Belding was stationed in reserve. “She’s helpless now. If we don’t get there soon——”
There were no more radio messages. The calls to the Susanne were not answered. The melting fog soon gave the lookouts a clearer view ahead.
“Steamship tops and rigging in sight, sir!” was the cry to the bridge. Then, a minute later: “She’s on fire, sir, and sinking by the stern.”
“Ah!” muttered Ensign MacMasters. “We are too late again!”
CHAPTER XXI—THE MYSTERY MESSAGE
In a very few minutes the crew of the Colodia—all those above deck, at least—gained a view of the burning ship.
She was completely wrecked at the stern, and it was probably true, as Ensign MacMasters had said, that her engines and boilers had been blown up. She lay helpless and sinking.
All her passengers and her crew had been driven forward by the flames. The bow of the steamship was slanting up into the air at a threatening angle. The men were lowering such boats as there remained from the forward davits.