owed thirty-five fathoms of chain.

From the bridge, where Iris was standing, she could follow each
movement of the commander's hands as he signaled in dumbshow to the
steersman or telegraphed instructions to the engine-room. It was
interesting to watch the alertness of the men on duty. They were a
scratch crew, garnered from the four quarters of the globe at the
Liverpool shipping office, but they moved smartly under officers who
knew their work, and the _Andromeda_ was well equipped in that respect.

The turbulent current was surging across the bows with the speed of a
mill-race, so Coke brought the vessel round until she lay broadside
with the land and headed straight against the set of the stream. It
was his intent to drop anchor while in that position, and help any
undue strain on the cable by an occasional turn of the propeller.

"Keep her there!" he said, half turning to the man at the wheel; he
changed the indicator from "Full speed" to "Slow ahead"; in a few
seconds the anchor chain would have rattled through the
hawse-hole--when something happened that was incomprehensible,
stupefying--something utterly remote and strange from the ways of
civilized men.

The _Andromeda_ quivered under a tremendous buffet. There was a crash
of rending iron and an instant stoppage of the engines. Almost merging
into the noise of the blow came a loud report from the land, but that,
in its turn, was drowned by the hiss of steam from the exhaust.

Coke appeared to be dumfounded for an instant. Recovering himself, he
ran to the starboard side, leaned over, looked down at a torn plate
that showed its jagged edges just above the water-line, and then lifted
a blazing face toward a point half-way up the neighboring cliff, where
a haze lay like a veil of gauze on the weather-scarred rocks.

"You d--d pirates!" he yelled, raising both clenched fists at the
hidden battery which had fired a twelve-pound shell into the doomed
ship.

The _Andromeda_ herself seemed to recognize that she was stricken unto
death. She fell away before the current with the aimless drift of a
log.

"Let go!" bellowed Coke with frenzied pantomime of action to Hozier.
It was too late. Before the lever controlling the steam windlass that
released the anchor could be shoved over, another shell plunged through
the thin iron plates in the bows, smashing a steam pipe, and jamming
the hawser gear by its impact. The missile burst with a terrific
report.