"Every man for himself!" shouted the British commander.
From the Lupin, now standing off, there came a tremendous cheer.
Rodney Redisham, coming up on deck through the splintered companion, heard the cheer repeated, and saw his commander and fellow officers gravely raising their hands aloft in a last farewell salute. He turned and glanced round to the westward, and to his amazement there came plunging out of the mist the giant shape of a British Dreadnought cruiser, flying a vice-admiral's pennant.
It was the Saturn, the first of the battle line.
The mighty 13-inch guns of the cruiser boomed out across the sea, and with the first salvo the Schiller was hit in a vital part. The hail of shells round the two destroyers suddenly ceased. Another hawser was shipped, and the Levity was towed away.
With the battle cruiser squadron the light cruiser squadron also appeared and joined in the confused fighting. The Saturn and her immediate consorts gave chase to the Stein, very quickly sank her, and set the Klopstock on fire. A second of the German destroyers was sent to the bottom, whilst many others were badly damaged.
In the meantime, the Athene and the Sarpedon had driven one of the enemy cruisers, the Coblentz, back towards the Schiller, where she turned and engaged them hotly at long range. Both of the British ships received a good deal of injury themselves before they succeeded in sinking her.
The crippled Schiller was still above water, trying to escape with all the speed which her damaged engines would allow. The Sarpedon gave chase and opened fire upon her at a range of about ten thousand yards.
Admiral von Hilliger replied feebly with his after-turret guns and attempted further to check his pursuer by dropping explosive mines in his wake. But the British ship, with her greater speed, quickly overhauled him and exchanged broadsides with him.
Flames and thick smoke were still rising from the Schiller, when a shell, falling close beside her, sent up a great fountain of water which deluged her decks and extinguished the fire.