ick-firers, and the horrible grinding rattle of the machine guns in
the tops that sounded clearly above all, and every few seconds came
the scream and the bang of bursting shells, and the dull, crashing
sound of rending and breaking steel, as the terrible missiles of
death and destruction found their destined mark.

Happily the _Lurline_ was out of the line of fire, or she would have
been torn to fragments and sent to the bottom in a few seconds. She
continued on her course at her utmost speed, and the French cruiser
was, of course, too busy to pay any further attention to her. Not so
the remaining torpedo-boat, however, which, leaving the two big ships
to fight out their duel for the present, was pursuing the yacht at
the utmost speed of her forced draught.

Capture or destruction soon only became a matter of a few minutes.
Tremayne, determined to hold on till he was sunk or sighted the
air-ship, kept his flag flying and his engines working to the last
ounce that the quivering boilers would stand, and the Frenchman,
seeing that he was determined to escape if he could, opened fire on
him with his twenty-pounder.

Owing to the high speed of the two vessels, and the rolling of the
torpedo-boat, not much execution was done at first; but, as the
distance diminished, shell after shell crashed through the bulwarks
of the _Lurline_, ripping them longitudinally, and tearing up the
deck-planks with their jagged fragments. The wheel-house and the
funnel escaped by a miracle, and the yacht being end on to her
pursuer, the engines and boilers were comparatively safe.

One boat had also escaped, and that was hanging ready to be lowered
at a moment's notice.

At last a shell struck the funnel, burst, and shattered it to
fragments. Almost at the same moment the man in the fore-cross-trees,
who had stuck to his post in defiance of the cannonade, sang out with
a triumphant shout--

"The air-ship! The air-ship!"

Hardly had the words left his lips when a shell from the torpedo-boat
struck the _Lurline_ under the quarter, and ripped one of her plates
out like a sheet of paper. The next instant the engineer rushed up on
deck, crying--

"The bottom's out of her! She'll go down in five minutes!"

Tremayne, who was the only man on deck save the look-out, ran out of
the wheel-house, dived into the cabin, and a moment later reappeared
with Natas in his arms, and followed by his two attendants. Then,
without the loss of a second, but