“It was the only thing to do,” said Jack. “We wouldn’t have stood a chance if we had remained where we were,” and he explained that it was impossible to find shelter on the flush deck or to retreat back into the forecastle.
“Well, all’s well that ends well,” said Mr. Smallwood, “but it gave me a turn when I saw you come sky-hottling off that bow. But,—great Christmas,—look yonder.”
He pointed back at the burning ship. By her own light they saw her pitch heavily forward, hesitate an instant and then, without further warning, and amidst a piteous bellowing that sounded like a death-wail, shoot downward to the depths of the ocean. In an instant the light she had spread across the rough sea had vanished, and by contrast, the night appeared to have suddenly solidified about them in velvety blackness. A moment later a blinding white light groped across the waste of tossing waters and enveloped them in its glow. It was the searchlight of the St. Mark and it accompanied them with its cheering light till they reached the ship’s side.
They were greeted amid acclamation, and Dick Sanders was at once taken charge of by the ship’s doctor and some lady passengers. The man who had been rescued had, by this time, however, sufficiently recovered to accompany Mr. Smallwood, Bill and Jack to Captain Jameson’s cabin, where that officer was eagerly waiting to hear the details of the rescue.
The rescued sailor, whose name was Mark Cherry, soon told them the story of the disaster to the Buffalonian, a British cattle ship which had left New York for London several days previously. Early that evening the craft had been overtaken by a German cruiser and ordered to surrender. Every one on board was made prisoner, and some of the cattle taken, when the British captain, seized by a sudden fit of anger, struck the German commander in the face. He was instantly ironed, as were his officers, Mark Cherry observing all this from under the cover of a boat where he had been working when the cruiser took the cattle craft, and in which he had remained hidden.
In revenge, apparently, for the British captain’s attack on him, the German commander had, on his return to his own ship, ordered the Buffalonian fired upon by the big guns. The hidden sailor crouched in terror in his place of concealment while the cannon boomed. He thought his last hour had come. The projectiles shrieked through the sternworks of the ship and one, he thought, had struck amidships (which accounted for the vessel’s foundering).
At length, appearing to tire of this, the German cruiser put about and steamed away. Cherry crept from his hiding place where he had remained paralyzed with fright throughout the bombardment, and making for the wireless room sent out the only signal he knew, the S. O. S., which he had learned from a friendly wireless man, in case there ever came a time when it would be a matter of life and death to him to use it. This explained why no answer came to Muller’s frantic calls after the first distress signal.
It was only a few moments after this call that flames burst from the shattered stern, and Cherry knew that unless help came, his hours were numbered. So confused and terrified was he by his desperate situation, that it was not till Jack’s appearance on the scene, he remembered little Dick Sanders, the cabin boy, lying sick in his bunk below. (It may be said here that with care and good treatment the lad quickly recovered his health, and he and Mark Cherry were put to work with the crew of the St. Mark.) Thus, without further incident, the English Channel was reached and Jack began busily to try to communicate with the firm’s London agents for instructions as to docking orders.