r h-e-l-m!"

The helm was already over; the ship was swinging wide. Another quick
order. The second officer leaped again to the semaphores. The huge
fabric trembled, racking in every plate, as both engines reversed at
full speed, the screws churning and thundering astern. And now a rift
came in the encircling fog, as if it had been cut by a mighty sword.

Clear and distinct, not half a cable's length away, wallowed a great
black shape. The mighty bow swept veering past her quarter, then her
stern, and clear of it by no more than thirty yards!

Only those few on deck outside of the weather-cloth saw the sight, and
then for but an instant. Never would they forget it!

Lying low in the water, all awash from the break of her
topgallant-forecastle to the lift of her high poop-deck, the green
seas running under her bridge and about her superstructure, swayed a
great mass of iron and steel of full five thousand tons! Ship without
a soul! A wisp of a flag, upside down, still floated in her slackened
rigging; swinging falls dangled from her empty davits. Then the fog
closed in, and, as a picture on a lantern-slide fades and disappears,
she vanished and was gone!

A white-faced boy looked up into Miss Dorn's frightened eyes. His
lips moved, but made no sound.

On the bridge, the captain had grasped the second officer by the arm.
"My God! Fitzgerald, did you see that? It was the _Drachenburg_."

"Derelict and abandoned! But, by heaven, sir, _she signaled us!_"

The captain turned quickly. "Stop those engines!" he ordered hoarsely.

The tearing pulses down below ceased their beating; it was as if a
great heart had stopped! The ship, breathless at her own escape, lay
calm and quiet in the fog. The only sound was of the greasy waves
lapping her high steel flanks. Yet----

Admiral Dorn, still standing beneath the bridge, with both hands
grasping the rail, shivered and drew breath. What might have happened
if----He looked forward. He imagined he could hear the crash, see the
great bow sinking; he could hear the splintering of the bulk-heads,
the screams of the people tumbling up the companionways, the panic and
pandemonium, the mad rush for the boats, the horrid, slow subsidence.
But it was not to be; the danger had gone by!

Now he remembered having heard that first low whistle before the two
that had signaled so plainly: "_I have my helm to starboard--passing
to starboard of you!_" And yet, well did he know that no fires