ugh it had been
made of matchboard. Then the _Banshee_ dropped to within five hundred
feet and let go another shell almost in the same place. A terrific
explosion burst out in the very vitals of the stricken ship, and the
great cruiser seemed to split asunder. A vast volume of mingled smoke
and flame and steam rose up, and when it rolled away, the _Spartiate_
had almost vanished.

But that was the last act of destruction that the _Banshee_ was destined
to accomplish. That moment the moon sailed out into a patch of clear
sky. Every eye in the squadron was turned upward. There was the airship
plainly visible. Her captain instantly saw his danger and quickened up
his engines, but it was too late. He was followed by a hurricane of
shells from the three-pound quick-firers in the upper tops of the
battleships. Then came an explosion in mid-air which seemed to shake the
very firmament itself. She had fifty or sixty of the terrible shells
which had wrought so much havoc on board, and as a dozen shells pierced
her hull and burst, they too exploded with the shock. A vast blaze of
pink flame shone out.

"Talk about going to glory in a blue flame," said Seaman Gunner
Tompkins, who had aimed one of the guns in the fore-top of the
_Hannibal_, and of course, like everybody else, piously believed that
his was one of the shells that got there. "That chap's gone to t'other
place in a red'un. War's war, but I don't hold with that sort of
fighting; it doesn't give a man a chance. Torpedoes is bad enough, Gawd
knows--"

The words were hardly out of his mouth when a shock and a shudder ran
through the mighty fabric of the battleship. The water rose in a
foam-clad mountain under her starboard quarter. She heeled over to port,
and then rolled back to starboard and began to settle.

"Torpedoed, by George! What did I tell you?" gasped Gunner Tompkins. The
next moment a lurch of the ship hurled him and his mates far out into
the water.

Even as his ship went down, Captain Barclay managed to signal to the
other ships, "Don't wait--get out." And when her shattered hull rested
on the bottom, the gallant signal was still flying from the upper yard.

It was obvious that the one chance of escaping their terrible unseen foe
was to obey the signal. By this time crowds of small craft of every
description had come off from both shores to the rescue of those who had
gone down with the ships, so the Admiral did what was the most practical
thing to do