hought I was sort o' seein' things;
but fin'lly I figgered it out as the juice from the busted 'lectric
wires short-circuitin'. It meant, I tol' myself, that the men under them
tons o' steel was bein' 'lectrocuted on top o' bein' crushed.

"It looked like any one o' three or four things would be enough to
finish the ol' _Firebran'_. I remember thinkin' that if she didn't blow
up, she was sure to burn up; an' that if, by chance, she missed doin'
one o' them, she was goin' to founder anyhow. She was already well down
by the head, an'--leastways, it looked so to me at the time--still
settlin' fast. An' I was just reflectin' that, even if she was lucky
enough not to burn up, or blow up, or founder, she was still too easy
pickin' for the Huns to miss doin' her in one way or 'nother, when,
thunderin' out o' the darkness an' headin' up to crumpl' underfoot what
was left o' the stopped an' helpless _Firebran'_, come a hulkin' big
battl' cru'ser, the one I was just tellin' you the _'Lympus_ set me
thinkin' on a while back.

"Starin' at our own fires must have blinded me a good bit, or I'd have
seen him sooner'n I did. He looked like he been gettin' no end o' a
hammerin', for his second funnel was gone, an' out of the hole it left a
big spurt o' flame an' smoke was rushin' that would have showed him up
for miles. There was a red hot fire ragin' under his fo'c'sl', too, an'
I saw the flames lashin' round thro' some jagged shell holes in his port
bow. Lucky for us, he was runnin' for his life, an' had no time to more
than try to run us down in passin'.

"It must have been just from habit I yelled down my voice-pipe, for I
knew they was no longer controllin' her from the bridge; but the roarin'
o' a fire an' the clank of bangin' metal was the only sounds that come
back. When I looked up again the Hun was right on top of us, an' I must
have just stood there--froze--like to-night wi' the _'Lympus_. By the
grace o' Gawd, he hadn't been abl' to alter course enough to do the
trick. His stem shot by wi' twenty feet or more clearance, an' it was
only the fat bulge of him that kissed us off in passin'. It was by the
glare o' his fires, not ours, which throwed no light abaft the
superstructure I was on, that I saw some of the hands was already
workin' to rig a jury steerin' gear aft. Then he was gone, an' much too
full o' his own troubles to turn back, or even send the one heavy proj
that would have cooked us for good an' all. A few minute