y and of horror. One by one, as they were reached by the flame, her
guns exploded--a loud and awful sound in the night above the Roads. We
stood and watched that sea picture, and we watched in silence. We are
seeing giant things, and ere this war is ended we shall see more. At two
o'clock in the morning the fire reached her powder magazine. She blew
up. A column like the Israelite's Pillar shot to the zenith; there came
an earthquake sound, sullen and deep; when all cleared there was only
her hull upborne by the sand and still burning. It burned until the
dawn, when it smouldered and went out."

The narrator arose, walked the length of the parlour, and came back to
the four women. "Haven't you had enough for to-night? Unity looks
sleepy, and Judith's knitting has lain this half-hour on the floor.
Judith!"

Molly spoke. "Judith says that if there is fighting around Richmond she
is going there to the hospitals, to be a nurse. The doctors here say
that she does better than any one--"

"Go on, Edward," said Judith. "What happened at dawn?"

"We got the turtle in order, and those ancient mariners, our engines,
began to work, wheezing and slow. We ran up a new flagstaff, and every
man stood to the guns, and the Merrimac moved from Sewell's Point, her
head turned to the Minnesota, away across, grounded on a sand bank in
the North Channel. The sky was as pink as the inside of a shell, and a
thin white mist hung over the marshes and the shore and the great
stretch of Hampton Roads. It was so thin that the masts of the ships
huddled below Fortress Monroe rose clear of it into the flush of the
coming sun. All their pennants were flying--the French man-of-war, and
the northern ships. At that hour the sea-gulls are abroad, searching for
their food. They went past the ports, screaming and moving their silver
wings.

"The Minnesota grew in size. Every man of us looked eagerly--from the
pilot-house, from the bow ports, and as we drew parallel with her from
the ports of the side. We fired the bow gun as we came on and the shot
told. There was some cheering; the morning air was so fine and the prize
so sure! The turtle was in spirits--poor old turtle with her battered
shell and her flag put back as fast as it was torn away! Her engines,
this morning, were mortal slow and weak; they wheezed and whined, and
she drew so deep that, in that shoaly water, she went aground twice
between Sewell's Point and the stretch she had now reached of