o thousand tons, and her speed twenty-four
knots. She was armoured from end to end with twelve-inch plates against
which ordinary projectiles smashed as harmlessly as egg-shells. Twelve
fourteen-inch thousand-pounder guns composed her primary battery; her
secondary consisted of ten 9.2 guns, and her tertiary of twelve-pounder
Maxim-Nordenfeldts in the fighting tops.

It was the first time that Erskine had seen one of these giants of the
ocean, and when they got alongside he said to Denis Castellan:

"There's a fighting machine for you, Denis. Great Scott, what wouldn't I
give to see her at work in the middle of a lot of Frenchmen and Germans,
as the _Revenge_ was among the Spaniards in Grenville's time. Just look
at those guns."

"Yes," replied Castellan, "she's a splendid ship, and those guns look as
though they could talk French to the Frenchies and German to the
Dutchmen and plain English to the lot in a way that wouldn't want much
translating. And what's more, they have the right men behind them, and
the best gun in the world isn't much good without that."

At this moment they heard a shrill voice from the forecastle of the
nearest destroyer.

"Hulloa there, what's the matter?" came from the deck of the _Britain_.

"Four French destroyers coming up pretty fast from the south'ard, sir.
Seem to be making for the flagship," was the reply.

"That's a job for us," said Erskine, who was standing on the narrow deck
of the _Ithuriel_, waiting to go on board the _Britain_. "Commander,
will you be good enough to deliver this to the Admiral? I must be off
and settle those fellows before they do any mischief."

The commander of the destroyer took the letter, Erskine dived below, a
steel plate slid over the opening to the companion way, and when he got
into the conning-tower he ordered full speed.

Four long black shapes were stealing slowly towards the British centre,
and no one knew better than he did that a single torpedo well under
waterline would send Admiral Beresford's floating fortress to the bottom
inside ten minutes, and that was the last thing he wanted to see.

A quartermaster ran down the ladder and caught the letter from the
commander just as the _Ithuriel_ moved off.

"Tell the Admiral, with Captain Erskine's compliments, that he'll be
back in a few minutes, when he's settled those fellows."

The quartermaster took the letter, and by the time he got to the top of
the ladder, the _Ithuriel_ was flying