The huge craft broke in two amidship, the central portion of her decks leaping out of the water. The force of the explosion hurled Ensign Hallock and his men—lifeboat and all—over the stern amid a hurricane of débris, while our own craft was flung bottom-up with great violence, scattering us all about in the water.
In an incredibly brief time the Nippon slipped from view under the waves, the swiftness of her sinking causing a violent suction that swept us into a whirlpool filled with timbers, broken boats and wreckage of all sorts.
Something heavy struck me on the head and knocked me almost senseless, but I clutched a floating object and hung on in a daze. Presently I heard voices calling not far away and, swimming toward them, I found a couple of men clinging to the life-boat. Others quickly began to join us—among them Dr. Gresham. Soon we had the boat righted and found it undamaged. Someone picked up some oars.
Then we began rowing about the scene of the wreck, shouting and keeping a lookout for other survivors. In this way we rescued seven more men—one of the last of these being Ensign Hallock, who was dazed from a bad cut on the head.
After a time, believing further search to be futile, we made our way to the north bank of the fiord.
There now were only fifteen of us left—twelve men having perished in the explosion. While we were roughly dressing the wounds of the injured, we began to hear excited shouts in Chinese from the other side of the water, but the width of the fiord here was such as to make the cries indistinct. As the voices did not draw nearer, we began to believe that the sorcerers possessed no small boats in which to cross to the scene of the wreck. This gave us a greater feeling of safety, since the only way the sorcerers could get at us for the present was by swimming; and not enough of them were likely to try to constitute a serious menace.
In the distance the whistling and bell-ringing had now died out.
Hastily conferring upon what should be done, we decided to stick to the lifeboat and drop down the channel, hoping to get out of the country of the Seuen-H’sin before daylight. This course seemed feasible, since the whole north bank of the fiord—the side opposite the village—was now in shadow.
We started at once, rowing along silently, close to the shore. Occasionally we heard voices on the south bank, but we made no closer acquaintance with the Chinese.
As we drew near the Albatross, we muffled our oarlocks with bits of cloth torn from our clothing, and took every precaution against making a sound.