l right. Watch out up there; report all you see," he answered.
Peeping out, he saw the _Lancaster_ and the _Cumberland_ sheering to
port, and he moved the lever of the steering-telegraph. There was no
answering ring. "Shot away, by George," he growled. He yelled into a
supplementary voice-tube to "starboard your wheel--slowly." This was
not answered, and with his own hands he coupled up the steering-wheel
on the binnacle and gave it a turn. It was merely a governor, which
admitted steam to the steering-engine, and there was no resisting
pressure to guide him; but a helm indicator showed him the changed
position of the rudder, and, on looking ahead, he found that she
answered the wheel; also, on looking to starboard, he found that he had
barely escaped collision with the _Montrose_, whose fire he had been
masking, to the scandal of the admiral and the _Montrose's_ officers.

A little unnerved, Captain Blake called down a seven-inch tube to an
apartment in the depths,--a central station of pipes and wires, to be
used as a last resort,--directing the officer on post to notify the
chief engineer of the damage, and to order the quartermasters in the
steering-room to disconnect their wheel and stand by. This was
answered, and the captain resumed his lookout, one hand on the wheel.

"Reduces the captain of the ship to a helmsman," he muttered.

The navigating officer approached, indicating by gesture and expression
his intention of relieving him, but was waved away.

"I want the wheel myself," shouted the captain. "Devil take a
conning-tower, anyhow! Keep a lookout to port. But say, Dalrymple, send
up for Finnegan. I'll not have him killed. Get him down, if he's
alive."

Mr. Dalrymple ascended the stair to pass the word for Finnegan, but did
not come down. He had reached the signal-platform, where one
quartermaster lay dead, and was transmitting the order to Mr. Wright,
when a heavy shell struck the mast, above their heads and below the
lower top, exploded inside, killed the three men on the platform, and
hurled the upper part of the mast, with both tops full of dead men and
living, high in air. The conning-tower was filled with gas and smoke;
but Captain Blake, though burned and nearly stripped of clothing by the
blast of flame, was uninjured by the flying fragments of the shell.
Smarting, gasping, and choking, fully aware of the complete destruction
above, his mind dwelt for an instant on the man who had once saved his