"Full steam ahead, and clear the machine-guns."
It was almost superb, I admit now, and the excitement of it was then upon me, to feel our great ship quiver at the touch of the bell, and bound forward with waves of foam and spray running from her decks, and each plate on her straining as though the mighty force of the engines below would rend it from its fellows.
I had not before known the limit of her speed, or what she could do when driven as she then was; and the truth amazed me, while it filled me with a strange exultation. For we, who had dallied heretofore behind the other, sped beyond her as an express train passes the droning goods; and coming about, in a great circle, we descended upon her as a goshawk upon the quarry.
The machine-guns upon our decks were already cleared; the men were stripped, ready for the fray, as tigers for their food. Indeed, before I quite understood the purport of the manœuvre, we were passing the Bellonic at a distance of not more than fifty yards; and at that moment it seemed as if all the furies of hell were let loose upon our decks.
Screaming like wild beasts, the men turned the handles of the Maxim guns; the balls rained upon the defenceless liner as hail upon a sheepfold. I heard fierce curses and dull groans; I saw strong men reel and fall their length as death took them; the breeze bore to me the wailing of women and the sobs of children.
But we had done the foul work in the one passage, for the flag dropped at once upon the liner, and the signal was made to us to come aboard. We had gained a horrid triumph, if such you could call the murders, and it remained but to divide the spoil.
"Lower away the launch, you John!" cried Black, "and take every shilling you can lay hands on. You hear me?—and hang up that skipper for a thin-skinned fool."
"By thunder, I'm yours all along," replied "Roaring John "; and then he sang out, "Hands for the launch!"
"You'd better go as cox," said Osbart to me, "you'll be amused"; and suggested it to Black, who turned upon me a look almost of hate.
"Yes, he shall go," he cried; "if we swing, he shall swing, the preaching lubber! Let him get aboard, or I'll kick him there."