leaps from her side and speeds on its errand of destruction. The
bubbles in its wake show the aim is good. It must strike. But no, it has
gone under the enemy's ram.

What is that hazy line to windward, but half a mile distant? It is a
most welcome sight to the brave man in the conning-tower, and he heads
his crippled ship for the oncoming mist. Soon she is swallowed up in the
dense fog-bank, and shut out from her enemy's view.

The enemy gives chase, as the American commander had expected. He turns
the trumpet of his sound-detector in the direction of the pursuing
vessel, and from its dial ascertains her course.

The enemy is still firing, but the guns of the _Kearsarge_ have ceased
to roar, and "silence fore and aft" is commanded of the crew. The
fleeing ship goes on until her Captain is sure that his foe has entered
the fog, then the helm is put hard over, and the ship swings around
until the instrument indicates that the other is dead ahead.

Again the Captain is hopeful of success, as he realizes that the
enshrouding mist and the instrument before him place the advantage in
his favor. His eye is fixed on the pointer of the dial, ever responsive
to the electric current set up by the sound waves beating upon the
sensitive diaphragm in the trumpet. The ship leaps forward until he
hears through the ear-piece the throb of the enemy's engines. His heart
beats fast, but he knows that he must be self-controlled.

The ships are coming together bows on. The American commander causes his
ship to swing to starboard a little so as to point her bow away from the
approaching enemy.

The instant for action has come. He starboards his helm in order to lay
his ship across the course of the enemy. "Prepare to ram" is telephoned
by the aid at his side. The ship swings around. The pointer swerves from
the direction of her starboard bow to dead ahead. Has he been too late?
Will he pass across her wake, or will he cross her path in time to
receive her ram prow in his own broadside? The needle points ahead when
the huge side of the enemy looms up through the fog.

In a moment, with a terrific shock, the ram bow of the victorious
_Kearsarge_ enters the side of the enemy, cleaving armor and
deck-plating as though it were wood.

Slowly the victor backs off from her sinking enemy.

The rammed ship commences to deliver death-dealing shots; but she is
fast sinking.

She can no longer elevate her guns enough to strike the _Kearsarge_