"Too high," muttered the sub. disappointedly, as the trail of smoke from the tracer of the shell mounted higher and higher, until it looked to be far above the flimsy target.
The next instant he felt like cheering madly and doing an impromptu hornpipe, for the shell had exploded above and within a very short distance of the doomed Zeppelin. Had it done so at ten times the distance the result would have been much the same.
Literally riddled with fragments of metal and smitten with the full force of the blast from the explosion, the airship began to drop with fearful rapidity, her ends curling upwards like a writhing worm. Then, like a flash of lightning, the whole of the buckled fabric burst into flames, the disintegrated fragments falling with a series of splashes into the sea.
For quite a minute after the collapse of the air-raider there was silence on board the monitor. The dramatic suddenness of the whole affair could at first hardly be realised. Then a rousing cheer burst from the throats of the depleted ship's company. The "Anzac" had created a war-record—bringing down a Zeppelin with a 14-inch gun.
CHAPTER XXXIII
A SPLINTER OF SHELL
Almost before the cheering died away an alert seaman raised the warning cry of "Submarine on the starboard quarter."
He had just caught a glimpse of the pole-like periscopes of a submarine ere they vanished beneath the surface of the placid sea.
Of her nationality there could be no doubt. A British one would have had no occasion to submerge, since the stranded monitor flew the White Ensign from a spar temporarily set on end and lashed to a stanchion in lieu of her demolished ensign-staff.