CHAPTER XV
A FRIGHTFUL MINE EXPLOSION
The order was given. There was no hope for the ship. "Lower the boats!" Everything was done with precision and in order, indicating that there was no panic on shipboard. Up to the last moment the wireless S. O. S., St. Duneen, 48, 50 N., 10 E., repeated and repeated the message of the disaster.
At a signal the wireless operator obeyed the commander's orders, and emerged from the little room high up aft of the main stacks. He sprang into the boat, as it was moving down.
"Pull away! pull away!" shouted the commander, as the boats reached the surface of the water. The order and its execution did not come too soon. Like a giant, in a death struggle, there were a few spasmodic movements, and more pronounced ones as the bulkheads gave way.
They were fully two hundred feet from the ship, when suddenly it seemed to roll around half-way, and they could look over the entire deck, so fully was it exposed to those on board of the dory in which the boys had taken refuge.
The vessel rested on its side for a moment only, then it slowly staggered back, the bow quickly dipped, and failed to come back again. Then it seemed actually to slide forward into the depths, the stern rising higher and higher, as the bow moved under. More than fifty feet of the stern of the ship was still out of the water, when a peculiar thing happened. The hull ceased to move. It remained at an angle in the air for a quarter of a minute, while every one stared at it in silence.