"I beg you, Captain Scott, not to let them go any farther," said Don very earnestly. "She is settling fast by the stern, and she will go down by the time they get alongside of her. She has settled so that the hole is more than half under water."
"That is so!" exclaimed Scott, as he glanced at the stern of the wreck. "Hold on! Hold on!" he shouted with all the force of his lungs. "Back out!"
The two rowers obeyed the order promptly, and backed water with all their might; and it was fortunate that they did so, or they would have been caught in the swirl of the sinking vessel. Before they had retreated twenty feet, the stern of the Fatimé suddenly went down, with a mighty rush of the water around her to fill up the vacant space inside of her, and then she shot to the bottom, disappearing entirely from the gaze of the beholders, as well in the two boats of the ship's company that had abandoned her, as of those on board of the Maud.
"That is the end of the pirate!" exclaimed Captain Scott, with a sort of solemnity in his tones and manner, as though he regarded the fate of the steamer as a retribution upon her for the use to which she had been applied.
"Amen!" responded Don at the window of the pilot-house.
The burden of his responsibility began to weigh upon his mind as Captain Scott witnessed the last scene of the drama. But his thoughts were recalled to the present moment when he saw Louis and Felix, the commotion of the water having subsided, pulling with all their might back to the scene of the catastrophe.
The little boat had not been far enough away from the turmoil of the water to be unaffected by it; and for a moment the puny craft had rolled and pitched as though it would toss its passengers into the bay. A skilful use of the oars had saved the boat from being upset, and Louis and Felix began to survey the scene of the uproar as soon as the waves ceased the violence of their motion.
"Mazagan has gone to the bottom with her!" exclaimed Felix, as he looked about the various objects that had floated away from the wreck as it sank to the bottom.
"Perhaps not," replied Louis. "He was on the end of the bridge, and he may have floated off and come to the surface. Give way again, Flix!"
"There he is!" shouted the Milesian, as he bent to his oar with his boatmate. "His head just up out of the water, as though he had just come up from the bottom."