“Where is the baron,” said the baroness faintly.
The captain looked at the first officer, who made reply, “He is in the cabin, sir.”
“We have still five minutes if anybody chooses to bring him aboard,” said the captain.
And after a pause of a few seconds nobody stirred.
Ellen looked at Morning.
And Morning leaped upon the deck of the Esmeralda, followed by the captain, first officer, and one of the men.
In less than a minute the Baron Von Eulaw, writhing, cursing, and foaming at the mouth, was deposited on the deck of the launch, which steamed away rapidly in a direction opposite to that taken by the doomed vessel.
There were just two minutes to spare. The wheel of the Esmeralda had been lashed so as to head her away from the fleet. Her chief engineer was the last man to leave the engine room, and just before he left, he pulled the lever to increase her speed, so that in the two minutes which passed after the steam launch and the Esmeralda separated, they were quite a mile apart.
Suddenly a dull sound like the throb of a great muffled drum was heard. An immense arch of water arose in air. Upon its summit was the Esmeralda, broken into a dozen fragments, which writhed like a python twisting in the agonies of death. For a moment the cloven mail of the giant flashed and scintillated in the sun, and then, with a sound of sucking water—the death gurgle of those engulfed by the sea—each fragment went out of sight forever, and great billows of foam rolled over the spot where the mighty ship went down.