Zaidos rolled over and looked.
When you are in the water, as every Boy Scout knows, every object afloat looks mountainous. A common rowboat looms up like a three master, and Zaidos, looking in the direction of the Red Cross ship, saw a couple of battleships approaching, while a huge Zeppelin like a great bird of prey floated overhead. How many submarines were playing around beneath him, he could not guess. One thing was clear. They were in a position stranger than any story, madder than any dream. Floating there, almost exhausted in the sea, they were to be in the center of a sea fight. Velo still wept, and Zaidos himself felt a sob of excitement choke his throat.
"We are going to get it from both sides," he remarked to his cousin. "That Red Cross ship is trying to get out of range until this thing is over."
"What is going to become of us?" cried Velo.
"Don't know!" said Zaidos. "And I don't so much care. At least I don't mean to worry. I've watched a lot of poor swimmers go down just from exhaustion; and if we are not rescued, why, we just won't, that's all. I'll tell you one thing, though," he said with sudden anger, "if you don't brace up and stop making me listen to your whimpering, I am going to duck you again. I did it before when you were trying to drown us both and I am perfectly willing to do it again. You had better brace up!"
Velo was silent, and Zaidos fixed his eyes on the most amazing sight that a Scout ever witnessed.
Suddenly a wild shot ripped across the water, skipped along twenty feet from them, plowed its way into the sea, then disappeared.
Velo screamed. Another shot followed so close that the wave from it rocked them. Zaidos watched the Zeppelin with fascinated eyes. It circled round and round, in an effort to get over the biggest ship. A shot leaped up at it, and missed. The Zeppelin rose a little, then returned to the attack. Another shot narrowly missed it; but at that instant a bomb dropped like a plummet. It was a close miss. Zaidos could see wood fly as it clipped the prow and exploded as it reached the sea, doing but little damage.
"Look! Look!" cried Velo.
Another battleship was coming, and another, until before them five great monsters battled. The Zeppelin returned to the attack, and Zaidos himself cried, "Look! Look!" as a swift gleam of light across the water, on a line with his eyes, betrayed the lightning swift course of a torpedo. It struck the ship, and at the same moment the Zeppelin dropped an accurate bomb. There was a terrific explosion as the torpedo struck amidships, a spurt of flame as the bomb scattered its inflammable gases over the decks, and fire burst out everywhere. Another torpedo tore into the ship. Zaidos' eyes bulged as he watched, the monster ship flaming and roaring with repeated explosions, her own guns valiantly firing to the last. As she plunged nose-first into the sea, the boys could see the crew, like ants, pouring, leaping over the side, only to go down in the vast whirlpool made by the sinking vessel.