wn to the sea in ships. Hoarse commands
lifted above the groans and prayers, and strong but shaken figures
sprang with mechanical precision to the posts allotted them. Life-boat
after life-boat went down into the sea that glistened with the slanting
rays of an untroubled sun, low-lying at the end of day.

Fire broke out in several places. Down into the bowels of the ship
plunged the resolute, undaunted heroes who remained behind, the chosen
complement reserved for just such an emergency by the far-seeing master.

Above the hissing of steam and the first feeble cracklings of flame,
rose the stentorian voice of the Captain from his post at the base of
the demolished bridge.

"Fight, men! Fight! Fight! There are dying men below! Stand by! Fight
for them!"

He was bloody and almost unrecognizable as he stood there clutching a
stanchion for support. His legs were rigid, his body swayed, but his
spirit was as staunch as the star that had guided him for fifty years
through the trackless waste.

And while these doughty, desperate spirits fought the fire and smoke
with every means at their command, down in the suffocating depths of the
ship, braving not only the peril visible and at hand, but the prospect
of annihilation in the event that a belated bomb projected its hideous
force into the nest of high explosives,--while these men fought, the
smiling, placid sea was alive with small white craft that bobbed in the
gleaming sunlight, life-boats crowded to the gunwales with shuddering,
bleak-eyed men, women and children waiting to pick up those who stayed
behind, and who inevitably would be driven overboard by the resistless,
conquering flames.

Cruising about at a safe distance from the menacing hull, these boats
managed to rescue a few of the beings who had leaped overboard in the
first mad panic of fear, but many there were who went down never to be
seen again. No boat was without its wounded--and its dead; no boat was
without its stricken, anxious-eyed survivors who watched and prayed
for the salvation of loved ones left behind. With straining eyes they
searched the surface of the sea, peered at the occupants of near and
distant boats, stared at the scurrying figures on the decks of the
smoking steamer, hoping,--always hoping,--and always sobbing out the
endless prayer.

At last, as the sun sank below the blue-black horizon, exhausted,
red-eyed, gasping men struggled up from the drenched, smothering
interior of the shi