Ruhet believed Nicht.
“Ha, ha, ha!” he laughed. “That’s a good joke. Keep it up. Tell ’em to surrender first and set the example. Give ’em the port broadside. By my mother’s lost gold tooth, a good joke—give ’em the whole side.”
The broadside was fired and immediately something clipped away the Tonans’s figurehead.
“Now, who did that?” roared Ruhet. “Nicht, bring the gunner here who was so careless as that, and, by my father’s smoke-pipe, I’ll teach him a lesson.”
But alarm now seized upon Ruhet, and he forgot the figurehead. The little craft was seen to be sinking.
“Wahr,” he cried, “you are an infernal blunderer. You have let them hit that little thing, and she is going down. Man a boat and get the youngsters out of her, you land lunkers!”
Before this could be done the boat had entirely disappeared.
“It was Nicht,” said Wahr.
“Never mind now,” said Ruhet, “it’s too late. She’s gone and we’ve lost a fine toy and some children through your thickheadedness. Stand by to pick up the floaters.”
But, almost immediately, from the starboard quarter, came the voice they had heard before.