ogether," returned Dave, briefly. "It may turn out that the
ship can be kept afloat for an hour or two."

"The bulkheads were shut, sir," the mate explained, hurriedly, "but
fragments of the mine entered this first water-tight compartment, and
also the second. You'd better go down into the second compartment, too,
sir."

Darrin hurried up to the deck, followed by the mates and their men. The
hole in the first compartment extended some six inches below water line
and some two feet above. It was a long, jagged hole. Trying to descend
into the second compartment with the chief mate, Darrin found that the
hole here extended at least a foot below water line.

"It's going to be no use, sir," said the mate, sorrowfully. "I don't
believe the ship can be kept afloat more than ten minutes before she goes
down by the head. These are our two biggest compartments."

CHAPTER XXIII

A NOBLE FIGHT WITHOUT WEAPONS

NOR was the mate's warning a panicky one. There seemed not one chance in
a hundred of closing the gaps sufficiently to keep the hospital ship
afloat long enough to save many of its wounded passengers.

Dave had made his plans while coming alongside. By this time the repair
material he had brought along lay on the deck. He called his own men to
help him, and the chief officer sent two score more of British seamen to
his aid.

The engine-room fires being as yet untouched by water, the pumps were
working with tremendous force.

"Unroll that canvas, there. Run it out lively," Darrin ordered.

In a twinkling the first patch was ready. Dave himself helped with
weighting what was intended for the lower edge of the patch, and with
reeving in ropes at the sides and top.

"Over with it!"

Lowered down into place, the patch was fitted to the hole. It still had
to be made fast.

Both port and starboard gangways had been lowered, and launches from the
destroyer were alongside, receiving badly wounded men who had been taken
over the side on stretchers. The "Grigsby's" cutters were also alongside,
picking up such of the wounded men as could jump in life belts. The
"Gloucester's" own boats swung out after being loaded. The mine-sweepers
had come up and had lowered their boats and sent them to the rescue.
Several hundred men and women were reasonably sure of being saved, but
unless Darrin succeeded in what he was undertaking, from twelve to
fifteen hundred other human beings were surely doomed.

Badly as boats were n