life, whom he had sentenced to death. He looked up the hollow within
the wrecked staircase, but saw nothing.

Mr. Clarkson, however, happened to be looking through an upper
peep-hole in the sighting-hood at this moment, and saw the upper half
of the mast lift and turn; also, dimly through the smoke, he noticed,
among the dozen of men hurled from the tops, the blue-shirted figure of
one whom he knew to be Finnegan, clinging at arm's-length in mid-air to
a Gatling gun, which had been torn from its fastenings. Then the smoke
thickened and shut out the view; but a moment later he heard the
rattling crash of the mast as it fell upon the superstructure beneath.

"The whole mast's gone, boys," he shouted to his crew--"both tops.
Finnegan's done for."

And the story of Finnegan's finish went down the hoist and through the
ship, everywhere received with momentary sorrow, and increased
malediction on the drunken captain, who thought no more--and knew no
more--of a blue-jacket than to masthead him with the marines.

The tactics of both admirals being the same, and the speed of both
fleets--that of their slowest ships--being equal, they turned, and,
like two serpents pursuing each other's tails, charged around in a
circle, each ship firing at the nearest or most important enemy. This
fire was destructive. A ship a mile distant is a point-blank target for
modern guns and gunners, and everything protected by less than eight
inches of steel suffered. The _Argyll_ had lost her military mast and
most of her secondary guns. The flag-ship _Cumberland_, raked and
riddled by nine- and eleven-inch shells, surrounded herself with steam
from punctured boilers shortly after the signal to turn, and swung
drunkenly out of line, her boilers roaring, her heavy guns barking. A
long, black thing, low down behind the wave created by its rush, darted
by her, unstruck by the shells sent by the flag-ship and the _Marlborough_.
A larger thing, mouse-colored and nearly hidden by a larger wave, was
coming from the opposite direction, spitting one-pound shot at the rate
of sixty a minute, but without present avail; for a spindle-shaped
object left the deck of the first when squarely abreast of the helpless
flag-ship, diving beneath the surface, and the existence and position
of this object were henceforth indicated only by a line of bubbles, a
darting streak of froth, traveling toward the _Cumberland_. In less
than a minute it had reached her. The sea alo