nnelled thing, her centre funnel shot away and "lights were
flickering under her foc'sle as if she was on fire forward." Fancy the
vision of her, hurtling out of the dark, red-lighted from within, and
fleeing on like a man with his throat cut!

[As an interlude, all enemy cruisers that night were not keen on
ramming. They wanted to get home. A man I know who was on another part
of the drive saw a covey bolt through our destroyers; and had just
settled himself for a shot at one of them when the night threw up a
second bird coming down full speed on his other beam. He had bare
time to jink between the two as they whizzed past. One switched on her
searchlight and fired a whole salvo at him point blank. The heavy
stuff went between his funnels. She must have sighted along her own
beam of light, which was about a thousand yards.

"How did you feel?" I asked.

"I was rather sick. It was my best chance all that night, and I had to
miss it or be cut in two."

"What happened to the cruisers?"

"Oh, they went on, and I heard 'em being attended to by some of our
fellows. They didn't know what they were doing, or they couldn't have
missed me sitting, the way they did.]

THE CONFIDENTIAL BOOKS

After all that Eblis picked herself up, and discovered that she was
still alive, with a dog's chance of getting to port. But she did not
bank on it. That grand slam had wrecked the bridge, pinning the
commander under the wreckage. By the time he had extricated himself
he "considered it advisable to throw overboard the steel chest and
dispatch-box of confidential and secret books." These are never
allowed to fall into strange hands, and their proper disposal is the
last step but one in the ritual of the burial service of His Majesty's
ships at sea. Gehenna, afire and sinking, out somewhere in the dark,
was going through it on her own account. This is her Acting
Sub-Lieutenant's report: "The confidential books were got up. The
First Lieutenant gave the order: 'Every man aft,' and the confidential
books were thrown overboard. The ship soon afterwards heeled over to
starboard and the bows went under. The First Lieutenant gave the
order: 'Everybody for themselves.' The ship sank in about a minute,
the stern going straight up into the air."

But it was not written in the Book of Fate that stripped and battered
Eblis should die that night as Gehenna died. After the burial of the
books it was found that the several fires on her were manag