hich
made the deck slippery, and quietly served the gun which had not been
seriously damaged.

A very young naval cadet, who had been sent down to the engine-room from
the Prince-Admiral's conning-tower with an order, met Heideck on the
narrow, suffocatingly hot passage. He was a slender, handsome youth
with a delicate, boyish face. The blood was streaming over his eyes and
cheeks from a wound in the forehead. He was obliged to lean with both
hands against the wall for support, while, with a superhuman effort of
will, he compelled his tottering knees to carry him forward, his sole
thought being that he must keep upright until he had fulfilled his
errand. When Heideck inquired sympathetically after the nature of his
wound, he even attempted to wreathe his pale lips, quivering with pain,
into a smile, for in spite of his seventeen years he felt himself at
this moment quite a man and a soldier, to whom it was an honour and a
delight to die for his country. But his heroic will was stronger than
his body, wounded to death. In the attempt to assume an erect military
bearing before the Major, he suddenly collapsed. He had just strength
enough to give Heideck the Admiral's order and ask him to carry it out.
Then his senses left him.

In another battery the store of ammunition had been exploded by a
shell. Not a man had escaped alive. Heideck himself, although since the
beginning of the engagement he had recklessly exposed himself to danger,
had hitherto, by a miracle, escaped death that threatened him in a
hundred different forms. He had been permitted, by express command of
the Prince, to stay a considerable time in the upper conning-tower,
from which the Imperial Admiral directed the battle, and the deliberate
calmness of the supreme commander, steadily pursuing his object, had
filled him with unshaken confidence in a victory for the German fleet,
in spite of the numerical superiority of the English.

Ever since Heideck had heard the news of Edith Irwin's death from
Brandelaar, all purely human feelings and sensations that connected
him with life had died in his heart. He was no longer anything but the
soldier, whose thoughts and efforts were filled exclusively with anxiety
for the victory of his country's arms. All personal experiences were
completely forgotten as if they had taken place ten years ago. At this
moment, when the existence or extinction of nations was at stake,
his own life was of so little importance to him