or by a shock like
that of an earthquake. It was accompanied by a dull roar and an awful
sound of crashing and rending. At the same time the ship seemed to be
lifted bodily. Then she fell back, apparently striking on her side,
and for several minutes rolled with sickening lurches, as though in the
trough of a heavy sea.

In the meantime Cabot was struggling furiously to open his stateroom
door; but it had so jammed in its casing that his utmost efforts failed
to move it. The steel deck beams overhead were twisted like willow
wands, the iron side of the ship was crumpled as though it were a sheet
of paper, and with every downward lurch a torrent of icy water poured
in about the air port, which, though still closed, had been wrenched
out of position. With a horrid dread the prisoner realised that unless
quickly released he must drown where he was, and, unable to open the
door, he began to kick at it with the hope of smashing one of its
panels.

[Illustration: He began to kick at it with the hope of smashing one of
its panels.]

With his first effort in this direction there came another muffled roar
like that of an explosion, and he felt the ship quiver as though it
were being rent in twain. At the same moment his door flew open of its
own accord, and he was nearly suffocated by an inrush of steam.
Springing forward, and blindly groping his way through this, the
bewildered lad finally reached the stairs he had so recently descended.
In another minute he had gained the deck, where he stood gasping for
breath and vainly trying to discover what terrible thing had happened.

Not a human being was to be seen, and the forward part of the ship was
concealed beneath a dense cloud of steam and smoke that hung over it
like a pall. Cabot fancied he could distinguish shouting in that
direction, and attempted to gain the point from which it seemed to
come; but found the way barred by a yawning opening in the deck, from
which poured smoke and flame as though it were the crater of a volcano.
Then he ran back, and at length found himself on top of the after
house, cutting with his pocket knife at the lashings of a life raft;
for he realised that the ship was sinking so rapidly that she might
plunge to the bottom at any moment.

Five minutes later he lay prone on the buoyant raft, clutching the
sides of its wooden platform, while it spun like a storm-driven leaf in
the vortex marking the spot where the ill-fated. "Lavinia" ha