Nearer and nearer came the wall of solid water, maintaining an unbroken wave towards the centre of the river. Close to the banks it broke heavily.
"Go full speed ahead or we'll be into you!" shouted Kapitan von Riesser frantically.
The Myra's engine-room telegraph clanged. Either by accident or design the British engineers were slow in replying. The tramp was only just forging ahead when the bore swept under the Pelikan's counter.
Round swept the raider, her stern just missing the Myra's taffrail. Fortunately her cables held, but not so the tramp.
With her engines going ahead and held tightly by the scope of her anchor-chain—for the anchors themselves, thanks to their dummy forelocks, were useless—the tramp headed uncontrollably towards the port-hand bank. In the midst of the tumult of water as the bore broke over her she struck and struck heavily.
In an instant the doomed vessel fell over on her beam-ends. With an appalling crash her funnels and masts went by the board. So sudden was the catastrophe that a dozen German seamen were trapped down below. Only by the narrowest margin did the British engine-room staff make their escape.
Of what occurred during the next few moments neither Denbigh nor O'Hara had any clear recollection. They found themselves standing on the side of the vessel. Captain Pennington, Armstrong, and Unter-leutnant Klick were there, too. Up for'ard the British seamen and half a dozen of the German prize crew were scrambling along the upturned sides, which were by this time barely three feet above the surface of the raging stream.
It was evident that the survivors had found only a very temporary place of refuge. The force of the current sweeping past the ship was wearing out a deep hole in the bed of the river, into which the Myra was slowly subsiding. To attempt to escape by swimming was almost an impossibility, as the water surged and eddied past, forming a dangerous whirlpool close to the stern of the vessel.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Armstrong. "This is a proper wash-out. We've done the trick properly this time."
"Yes, it's more than we bargained for," added the Irishman. "I would never have believed that a craft of this size would be swallowed up so quickly."