Passing close to the _Albemarle_,
we made a complete circle round her, so as to strike her fairly. Then
Lieutenant Cushing gave the order, and we went straight at her, bows on.
In a moment we struck the logs, just abreast of the quarter-port, with
such force that we leaped half over them, at the same time breasted them
in. The boom was lowered at once. `Now, lads, a vigorous pull!' said
Cushing.

"We obeyed, and sent the torpedo right under the overhang of the ship.
It exploded. At the same instant the _Albemarle's_ great-gun was fired.
A shot seemed to go crashing through the boat, and a dense mass of
water rushed in from the torpedo. It seemed to me as if heaven and
earth had come together. Smoke and yells, with continued firing at only
fifteen feet range, followed, in the midst of which I heard the
commander of the ironclad summon us to surrender. I heard our
lieutenant twice refuse, and then, ordering the men to save themselves,
he jumped into the water. I followed him, and for some time swam in the
midst of a shower-bath caused by plunging shot and bullets, but not one
of them struck me. At last I reached the shore, and escaped.

"At the time I thought we must have failed in our purpose, but I was
mistaken. Though we had lost one boat and some of our men, many of them
being captured, I learned that the _Albemarle_ had sunk in fifteen
minutes after the explosion of the torpedo, only her shield and
smoke-stack being left out of the water to mark the spot where a mighty
iron-clad had succumbed to a few pounds of well-applied gunpowder!"

"If that be so," said Lancey, after a pause and deep sigh, "it seems to
me no manner of use to build ironclads at all, and that it would be
better, as well as cheaper, in time to come, to fight all our battles
with torpedo-boats."

"It may be so," replied the skipper, rising, "but as that is a subject
which is to be settled by wiser heads than ours, and as you have to look
after the ladies' breakfast to-morrow morning, I'd strongly advise you
to turn in."

Lancey took the hint, and as he slept in a berth close to the cabin, I
quickly had nasal assurance that he had thrown care and torpedoes to the
dogs.

It was not so with myself. Much of the information which Mr Whitlaw
had unconsciously conveyed to me was quite new, for although I had, as a
youth, read and commented on the late American war while it was in
progress, I had not given to its details that amount of c