The German warship tilted still further. Then she gave a long, lazy roll, like a sea-monster seeking rest; her stern lifted, and she dived down, head-first. So quickly was it done that it seemed a dream; one moment the great ship held every eye—the next, and she was gone, and scarcely a ripple marked the place of her sinking.
As she went, black forms dropped from her, looking, at that distance, like a swarm of flies. They could be seen faintly in the smooth water, tiny dots upon the surface of the slow swell.
“Oh—hurry! hurry!”
Norah did not know that she had spoken. Her eyes were glued to those helpless black specks.
The boats were already swung out. As the Sealark and the Perseus came near the broken wreckage and bobbing heads, both ships slackened, and the boats shot down to the water. There was a moment’s delay as the ready oars came out and they drew away from the side; then they leaped forward, every man bending in real earnest to his work. Once among the wreckage, all but two oars were withdrawn, and the rowers leaned over, intent on their work of mercy. They lifted out one dripping form after another. Their cries of encouragement drifted back to the ships.
“I don’t think one other head is showing,” said Jim at last. “Poor beggars—what a crowd have gone down!”
They scanned the sea with keen eyes. There was nothing to be seen but spars and littered wreckage.
“The boats are coming back,” Norah said, her voice shaking. Not to look had been impossible; but it would be as impossible ever to forget what she had seen.
They came back with their burden of flotsam and jetsam; it was pitifully small, compared to the number who had been on the ship. Some were wounded, many exhausted from shock and immersion. These were busy times for the doctor and his assistants on the Perseus. The Sealark had but little room for prisoners and the sick, and was glad to turn them over to the great empty liner.
“We’re practically a floating war prison,” said Mr. Dixon. They had exchanged final greetings with the British man-of-war, and the Perseus had resumed her course to the Canaries. “The two officers who called yesterday are with us, bless their jovial hearts! They aren’t wounded—and they’re not so supercilious either. An exceedingly wet and cold man can’t very well be supercilious, even if he’s a German—and those chaps were half-drowned rats when we pulled ’em in.”