e it," responded Alfred. "There is some sort
of deviltry around wherever we have happened to be ever since the war
began."

Notwithstanding the gravity of the situation, the captain could not
repress a smile, which he quickly suppressed, as he answered:

"Then what would you call me? They have sunk four ships under me by
torpedoes, and one by a mine. You have seen and experienced some of the
other adventures I have had within the past ten days, and now this is
another vessel to go down under me on account of a mine," said the
captain.

"A mine! a mine, did you say?" almost shrieked Alfred.

"Yes; one of the floating mines that the Germans are strewing about in
open defiance of all the laws," answered the captain with a bitter
voice.

CHAPTER XV

A FRIGHTFUL MINE EXPLOSION

The order was given. There was no hope for the ship. "Lower the boats!"
Everything was done with precision and in order, indicating that there
was no panic on shipboard. Up to the last moment the wireless S. O. S.,
_St. Duneen_, 48, 50 N., 10 E., repeated and repeated the message of the
disaster.

At a signal the wireless operator obeyed the commander's orders, and
emerged from the little room high up aft of the main stacks. He sprang
into the boat, as it was moving down.

"Pull away! pull away!" shouted the commander, as the boats reached the
surface of the water. The order and its execution did not come too soon.
Like a giant, in a death struggle, there were a few spasmodic movements,
and more pronounced ones as the bulkheads gave way.

They were fully two hundred feet from the ship, when suddenly it seemed
to roll around half-way, and they could look over the entire deck, so
fully was it exposed to those on board of the dory in which the boys had
taken refuge.

The vessel rested on its side for a moment only, then it slowly
staggered back, the bow quickly dipped, and failed to come back again.
Then it seemed actually to slide forward into the depths, the stern
rising higher and higher, as the bow moved under. More than fifty feet
of the stern of the ship was still out of the water, when a peculiar
thing happened. The hull ceased to move. It remained at an angle in the
air for a quarter of a minute, while every one stared at it in silence.

"What is the matter with it?" asked Alfred, who was the first to break
the silence.

"The bow is on the bottom of the ocean," said the captain.

That was, indeed, true. Soon it began to