THE RIVALS
HAD he been a cold-blooded creature with a heart of one ventricle, he might have been classed with the amphibia; for he was a vertebrate; he was born on land and had taken to the water—but only to the surface, for, though he could suspend respiration and even heart-action for a long period, a dive beneath would be fatal. Other points of difference between him and amphibians were his superheated, half-gaseous breath and blood; his twin hearts of complex structure that throbbed at "ten thousand indicated"; lungs, veins, and air-passages of cold-drawn, seamless tubing; nerves of copper, and hide of Harveyized steel several inches thick in places. His nose—of the same material and solid—was tons in weight, and his vertebral column longer, thicker, stiffer, and stronger than that of any known amphibian, living or extinct; so he was not an amphibian; neither was he any other kind of reptile, nor fish, nor bird, nor animal. He was superior to all, and, possessing a soul, was in close touch with humanity.
His consciousness had begun with a tickling sensation of broken glass and streaming wine on his nose, and the sound in his ears—or bow-sponsons, to be correct—of a receding musical voice which said: "I christen thee Vengeful." Then, in a quiver of nervous expectation and wonder, he had slid backward until the water received him, while thousands of small creatures all about him buzzed noisily. He had known his name when he heard it—it seemed that he had known it for ages—but he was still dazed and stupid, unable to "take notice," and immediately dropped into the healthy slumber of the newly born, during which slumber the mites of creatures tied him to a dock, scrubbed him, groomed him, and labored over him until his heart and lungs—in fact, his whole nervous and vascular systems—had developed to working condition. He had grown some formidable teeth and claws, and two pairs of one hundred thousand candle-power eyes which could see objects five miles away in the dark. He had acquired, too, a voracious appetite, and they poured a thousand tons of picked coal into his stomach, which he liked and began to digest. Then it was that he really lived and enjoyed life.
They called him a sea-going battle-ship of sixteen thousand tons displacement, and said that he was English; but he cared little for that. He remembered his name and knew his business, which was closely connected with his name. He purposed to attend to it; but in this regard was first confronted with the problem of the small creatures—the eight hundred busy, buzzing, scurrying parasites that lived upon him and within him. Naturally he had expected to be annoyed by them, but somehow—he could not understand how—they seemed to know the right thing to do at the right time, and even to anticipate his wishes. Was he hungry? They filled his stomach. Thirsty? They pumped fresh, sweet water into him. Hot and uncomfortable? They opened his ports and ventilating apertures, and cooled him with steady blasts of air. Every morning they attended to his bath, flushing and flooding all parts of him, rubbing him dry, and polishing his teeth and claws. When he had resolved upon a short venture to the open sea, he found them enthusiastically interested in the plan, calling it a "trial trip." And when, after a glorious battle with the mighty waves which tried their best to overwhelm him—a series of spurts ahead and backings astern, quick turns to the right and left under full speed, and a wild rush in a straight line in which he put forth his strength to the utmost, and quivered in every nerve and muscle, and roared and shrieked in his joy of might—he returned to his place in the harbor, fatigued and panting and hot with exertion, the joyous buzzing of the parasites equaled his mightiest roar. The buzzing was answered by other buzzing from other bugs on other ships in the harbor; and when it had subsided a little and become articulate, he heard them boasting: "Nineteen knots over a measured course—the largest and fastest battle-ship in the world." It would have been easy, in the furious rush into a head sea, to wash most of them off; but he had spared them, and now was glad. Whatever they were—whatever their part and mission, they were at least friendly, and did him good rather than harm. Later, when they had bathed him and cooled him down, and he was receiving the sober and more dignified congratulations of the ships, he heard them described as his "crew"—part of the congratulations referring to his good luck in getting a crew of such intelligence and efficiency.
"There's work for you in this world, youngster," said a one-funneled, sponsoned warrior of a past generation. "I won't be in it, though I hope to see it. Back number, you know. Obsolete, they call me; but if I had your teeth and hide and barbettes, I wouldn't funk at any job. Speed don't mean much in a mix."
"Don't, eh?" murmured a small, saucy torpedo-boat which, with feminine presumption and curiosity, had sniffed her way up between the two, and now lay breathing steam and black smoke in Vengeful's face. "Means a good deal to me."
"Pardon me," coughed Vengeful', politely; "but wouldn't you mind. Miss—I really don't know your name—but wouldn't you mind—"
"Dolly, you're no lady," interrupted the old warrior. "Clear out. You may not know it, and it's a rough thing to say to one of your sex, but your breath's very bad. Make your escape. Use some o' that speed o' yours."
"I'll not speak to you again, old Sponsons," snapped the torpedo-boat. "I can't help my breath—I just can't eat that hard coal you're all so fond of; it disagrees with me. And I only wanted to be introduced."
"Get around to leeward, and I'll make you acquainted; but, understand, I won't warrant you."
"You needn't mind, old Shiver-the-Mizzen. I'll introduce myself."
"Privilege of a gentleman."
"Mind your own business."
She shot ahead, a black streak under a thick line of horizontal smoke, turned in her tracks, and circled up under Vengeful's lee, where she stopped and said:
"Don't you believe a single word that old wretch says about me, will you? He hates me."
"But he hasn't said anything," answered Vengeful.
"But he will, I'm sure. My name's Wasp; but he calls me all sorts of names. When he's good-humored, as he happens to be to-day, it's Dolly or Mollie or Daisy; but oftener it's Newsy or Nosey or Busy. I detest him. Say, Mr. Vengeful"—she dipped her nose coquettishly in the crisp harbor sea and rolled a little, as though in feminine embarrassment—"found a sweetheart yet?"
"Say, Vengeful," called his friend, in a whispering blast of steam, "look out for that minx. She's a whole bag o' newspapers—she's a whole press syndicate. Listen to her and get the news, but look out what you say."
"What's he saying about me?" she demanded, lifting her nose high.
"Nothing—really nothing." Vengeful shivered at his first lie.
"Well, I hope not, just as we're getting acquainted. But about that matter—well, about your sweetheart. You won't wait long. Look around you. Why, every girl in the crowd is jealous of me now, and Black Jack, over there—see him at the outer buoy?—is jealous of you. He thinks I'm the only girl in the world, and I've made him think he's the bravest and best fellow alive; but I don't like him—don't like Russians at all. See him squirm. Why, he's pointing at you."
There was a large fleet at the anchorage. There were battle-ships of all types and classes, obsolete or modern—ponderous, truculent, masculine; armored cruisers—sexless compromises, poor fighters, and bad runners, despised of the ship world, but handsome withal, of good figure and pleasing carriage; protected cruisers were there—stately, lady-like, and respectable from keel to truck; unprotected cruisers as well, feminine too, of moral fiber and reputation in keeping with their unprotectedness, but which came mainly from their mutual jealousy and proneness to scandal-mongering. Lower still in the moral scale were the torpedo-boats and destroyers, quick of wit and speech and heel, shameless and irresponsible, but of serpentine grace and beauty. Of such was Miss Dolly, and in the first class named was her critic—crusty and discouraged old Warhorse, honest as a bulldog and a fighter in his day, but now a third-rate.
All these, with one exception, had offered welcome and congratulation to Vengeful. The exception was the Russian indicated by Dolly, a high-sided vicious-looking fellow of about Vengeful's draught and displacement, now tugging sulkily at his mooring buoy far over toward the channel. On his rail and boats was an unpronounceable, untranslatable name, which no one called him by, the fleet with one accord agreeing upon Black Jack as a fitting cognomen for a person who, even as a visitor, had not the manners to answer a civil "good-morning," be it given in the form of gun-salute, whistle, or signal. He had unkindly sneered at Vengeful on his first appearance among them, and all through the running fire of comment and approval following his trial of strength had remained moodily silent. As Vengeful looked at him he had swung his forward turret guns until they bore upon his superstructure, and was slowly bringing every gun in his port secondary battery to bear upon the same spot. One vicious eye on his forward bridge glared unspeakable things at Vengeful, and as he rolled and pitched in the choppy sea of the channel this eye lifted and fell, staring him out of countenance. The insult was unmistakable.
"My, what a temper!" giggled Mis3 Dolly. "Do you think, Mr. Vengeful, that you could thrash him?"
"I'm pretty sure that I could," he answered, slowly, though he quivered in anger; "but not sure of the etiquette."
"Challenge him," said Dolly, as she shot ahead. "I'll carry the challenge. Oh, I hope you'll thrash him well."
"Come back here, Miss Busy," hailed the observant Warhorse. "None of your mischief-making. Come back, I say." But Dolly was far away, circling around toward Black Jack. "Steady, Vengeful," he said, softly; "he's an infernal cad, of course, but a guest. You can't quarrel here; but you'll find him outside some day. However, he needs a rebuke from the rest of us."
Softly, yet penetratingly, Warhorse emitted a long-drawn hiss from an old-fashioned supplementary exhaust, and turned his one weak eye on the ill-bred stranger. Other ships followed suit; and a chorus of hisses and disapproving glances descended upon Black Jack. He understood; the guns swung to place and the vicious eye looked ahead. Vengeful had remained silent, and the unpleasantness might have ended with the rebuke; but Miss Dolly was at work. She was beside the Russian, whispering, nodding, and curtesying.
"He's smitten with her," growled Warhorse. "Wish they'd elope." He opened all his sponson ports, but nothing of the conversation could be heard at the distance. Soon, however, Miss Dolly raced ahead and demurely took her place at the dock. Then a deep-toned voice came over the water.
"So, you young whipper-snapper, just out of the cradle, you can thrash me, can you?"
"I answer for him," roared Warhorse, in a mighty burst of escaping steam. "He can not only thrash you with half his guns, but when you turn to run he can catch you under one boiler. He can toss you out of water with his nose, or climb over you and drown you with his weight. We've had enough of your company. Let go that buoy and go. Understand? Go! I am the father of the fleet, and what I say on these matters is the law of the fleet."
Approving hisses, groans, and growls from the assembled ships followed this, and, as the sulky Russian made no answer, they clamored at him with bells-all striking eight—one ship beginning as another ended. When all had sounded. Black Jack responded in kind, and, in spite of the apparent flippancy of the answer, the tremble in the notes told his humiliation. But not even his furious jerks at his cable, nor the quavering sobs and gasps he emitted as he rolled heavily from side to side, nor the thickness and blackness of the smoke belching from his funnels were a fair index of his rage. Before he slipped his moorings he again turned a gun on Vengeful—this time a small four-inch—and discharged it unshotted, repeatedly, each bark holding a note of hatred and challenge.
"Don't answer, Vengeful," cried Warhorse, soothingly. "Act when the time comes; but—I'll do the talking." He "talked" with a series of barks from a still smaller gun, the intent in the choice meaning the same as Black Jack's—that big-gun fire would be wasted on so poor an adversary. The Russian said no more; detaching his cable from the buoy, he forged ahead, turned abreast of Miss Dolly's dock, and, with a gloomy, backward glance at the quiescent young lady, steamed out to sea.
"Don't this put me in rather a bad light?" asked Vengeful, discontentedly. "I'm to fight him, I suppose; but where will I find him?"
"Mediterranean," answered Warhorse. "Didn't you understand? I told him you'd follow; but you need gun-practice and a little geography before you start."
Geography Vengeful learned at the anchorage, from the ceaseless gossip and conversation of the ships; the gun-practice he secured in the open sea, to which he made tri-weekly trips. And soon he surpassed his utmost expectations. He could hit the bull's-eye of a target a mile away with a twelve-inch shot while under full speed, and send a second through the same hole. The fleet was frankly proud of him, and even the flippant comment of the unprotected sisterhood held none of the usual sarcasm, while the behavior of Miss Dolly was most exemplary—as old Warhorse put it: "Minding her own business, and sawing wood like a lady."
But her maidenly reserve left her when Vengeful was ready to start. She left her dock and hovered near him, hinting broadly that she would be glad of an invitation to accompany him. It was not forthcoming; Vengeful was a battle-ship, and, aside from the slight resentment which he felt toward the gossipy female, he had the instinctive aversion of all battle-ships to torpedo-craft in general; for there is but one thing afloat feared by a battle-ship-the slim, fish-hke horror that an angry torpedo-boat can send at an enemy, the thing that dives from a tube, seeks a twenty-foot depth, and travels at a thirty-knot rate in the direction originally pointed. If swerved from this direction by wave-motion, or obstructing logs, buoys, or cables, it immediately returns to it, implacable and murderous. When it strikes it explodes and dies; but its victim dies as well; for the mightiest craft on the sea cannot withstand the impact of two hundred and twenty pounds of exploding gun-cotton. Like all of his kind, Vengeful carried torpedo-tubes, but only because he was born with them. Battle-ships scorn their use.
He had calmly and politely ignored hints, hoping to discourage her; but she was persistent, and at last announced shamelessly, that she would accompany him, even though he was not polite enough to invite her. Unfortunately, she was to windward at the time, smoking badly, and Vengeful, choking in the fumes, lost patience.
"No," he gasped and spluttered, "you won't accompany me. You ought to know better. Go away —go away from me, or else keep to leeward."
"Well, I never!" she answered. "Ought to know better! Better than what? The idea! Go away from you! Keep to leeward! You, too? I never thought you'd insult me. And I thought you were a gentleman."
"I'm not," he groaned. "Not with that breath in my face. Please go away."
"I will!" she screamed, in shrill, whistling accents. "I just hate you, now, I do. Whee-oop, whirroop!" and away she raced in a hot cloud of escaping steam. Then she came back, but this time to leeward.
"I'm going just the same," she snapped; "going to see you thrashed." And again she was off.
"What'll I do, Warhorse?" asked Vengeful, when the air was clear. "I don't want her traipsing along after me. Is there no way to prevent her? I'm young yet, with a good reputation, so far."
"One way."
"How?"
"Drown her," said Warhorse, grimly. "Drown her before she can work off one of her ducklings."
"But I can't do that. Have you no influence over her?"
"More than any one else here, but not enough to control her now. She is sensitive about her bad breath. But I'm rather fond of the little spitfire, and if she goes, I go too—to look out for her. It'll take most of my time, no doubt, but if I can be of any service in the mix—"
"Not at all. It'll be my row. No one else can attend to that. Hello, she's coming again."
Dolly slowly approached and stopped between the two.
"I believe," she said to Warhorse, in an even, sneering tone, "that I am supposed to ask the father of the fleet for permission to go out."
"You are," he answered, promptly, yet kindly; "and you are officially forbidden to go. You suffer from certain structural defects peculiar to your sex, and you'll surely drown yourself out there in Biscay. Stay home where you belong—hold on, there!" he roared. "What are you doing? Don't point that thing my way"—she had swung a menacing torpedo-tube around—"Stop," he continued, almost pleadingly. "What's the matter with you, Dolly?"
There's enough the matter with me," she answered training a second tube on Vengeful. He shivered, and experienced the freezing sensation in his veins which comes to the bravest in time of sudden peril yet kept his head; and Warhorse bunglingly endeavored to bring a four-inch slow-fire gun in amidships sponson to bear on the angry female.
"I beg of you, Miss Dolly," said Vengeful, gently, "not to continue this scene. You do yourself an injustice."
There was enough of friendliness in his tone, but too little of apology.
"Do I?" she answered, wildly, her words coming explosively from a sputtering safety—valve, while her funnels belched gaseous poison. "Injustice? Not half the injustice you have done me, you wretch, you villain! You made love to me—you did—you did! And then you insult me. I’ve a good mind to kill you both."
"Don’t, please don’t," said Vengeful, in alarm. "It’s all a mistake. I never meant to hurt your feelings. I didn’t know. Please go away, now, and think it over."
"I won’t go away. I won’t think any more. I’ve thought until my head aches. Whee-ee—ee-oo-oo!" she shrieked. "Whah-whee—whiroo—oo—oo!" Then followed an outburst of chattering laughter, then more shrieks, while she bobbed and rolled in the choppy harbor sea. It was genuine hysterics, and wise old Warhorse knew the remedy.
"Oh, ho—ho—ho—" he laughed. It was a forced, mirthless laugh, but the agitated Miss Dolly could not differentiate. "Oh, you great big girl, aren't you ashamed? Crying over a man. Everybody's listening."
It had its effect. She emitted a few concluding sobs and sniffs, then straightened her tubes and went to her dock. The danger passed. Vengeful shook in every plate and frame, though, to give his tremors a worthier seeming to the fleet, he blew off steam from one boiler, while Warhorse, clumsily rigging out a torpedo-net as obsolete as himself, murmured, huskily, "'Hell hath no fury,' and so forth. Vengeful," he called over the noise of steam, "there's a sweet young thing for her draught, but the Bay of Biscay'll stop her, we'll hope."
It was as he said. They left together. Vengeful cautiously protesting at her coming, Warhorse endeavoring by sarcasm and ridicule to discourage her, and the young lady sulky and determined as a spoiled child. She took the lead down the channel, and, once past Cape Mathieu, disdainfully shot ahead into the troubled waters of the bay, against the loud and earnest warning of Warhorse. They came up to her a little later, rolling in the trough, cold and drenched, half full of water, and barely breathing. Warhorse swung his huge bulk around to windward of her, and, dribbling oil to smooth the sea, gathered her up to him; then he put the tube of a stomach-pump down her throat—or, technically, a six-inch suction-hose down her fore-hatch—and pumped her out. Vengeful had watched curiously, and when Dolly's breathing and heart-action were normal, and when she was warmed up enough to thank her rescuer, Warhorse called out:
"Now, Vengeful, no use turning back—we'll go on; you've the horse-power, and Dolly's weak. Give her an arm—I mean a tow-line."
"Most happy, I assure you," murmured Vengeful, politely; for the sight of the drenched and woebegone little beauty had killed his anger. He approached carefully and passed Miss Dolly the end of a four-inch steel hawser, which she tied to her forward bitts, and, being agitated, she tied an extremely hard knot—a mischance often happening in feminine experience with shoe-strings; then, with Warhorse leading and setting the pace—twelve knots an hour—the cavalcade proceeded, with the subdued young lady contentedly rocking along in the oil-smeared wake of Vengeful.
Steam-boats are hard to tow; and notoriously harder than all are torpedo-boats; yet Miss Dolly, with a docility only explainable by her state of health, slipped along in a fairly straight line until Warhorse had led them past frowning Gibraltar and into the comparatively smooth water of the Mediterranean. But here, warmed, rested, and quite recovered, she perhaps realized more keenly the humiliating position she was in, and allowed her natural perverseness to assert itself. She first called, in icily polite terms:
"Stop, if you please; I am quite able to proceed alone."
"Hold on to her, Vengeful," whispered Warhorse, who had heard the request. "She's safe now. Keep the hawser taut so she can't shake loose. No knowing what she'll be up to."
"Let go of me!" she hissed, spitefully, a little later. "Do you hear?" But Vengeful put on speed. Now, it may have been this increased speed, or it may have been a shoal over which they were passing, that made steering at the end of a tow-line rather difficult; but these two factors together seemed hardly enough to produce the wild yaws to starboard and port which Dolly made after vainly waiting for Vengeful to "unhand" her. More probably her chagrin at the hardness of the knot she had tied influenced her. She could not cast off, and she strained mightily one way and the other, then, steadying herself, held back with all her strength, and the steel hawser sang like a harp-string. No four-inch wire rope can withstand the strain of six thousand horse-power pulling in one direction and sixteen thousand pulling in the other. Dolly's nose lifted high out of water; then the hawser snapped at the bitts, and before she had recovered from the consequent dive it had whirled ahead like a whip-lash and sunk in a series of tangled coils alongside of Vengeful's port rail. There was a crash, a burning pain in his vitals, a furious racing of his port engines, and he came to a stop, with one propeller, fouled by the steel wire, torn from the tail-shaft. Dolly dashed by him, and before anxious old Warhorse had circled around and joined him, she was a lessening spot on the eastern horizon.
"Great hundred-ton guns. Vengeful, who'd 'a' thought it?" said Warhorse. "All my fault, too. Hurt much?"
"Some," he groaned, through escaping steam. "That doesn't bother me. What's the remedy? Where can I doctor up?"
"Oh, it's a hospital job. Malta's the place for you. There's a good graving-dock there."
They went ahead, Vengeful under one engine, which was yet strong enough to push him along at Warhorse's best speed. At this it was but a day and a half's run to Malta, but they were destined not to reach it so soon. Coming out of Algiers, as they passed, was Miss Dolly, and behind her an elbowing crowd of steamers, tugs, yachts, and small sailing-craft, which circled seaward and formed a ring many miles in diameter. In the center of this ring the two gladiators—the old and the young, the obsolete and the modern—came to a stop. They understood and waited; and far to sea, now a mere speck on the outer fringe of the circle, was Dolly, also waiting.
"Talk about Samson and Delilah," growled Warhorse. "This beats all the ingratitude I ever heard of. She's found Black Jack, and betrayed you, Vengeful."
"Yes, I know; but she merely found him first. I'm ready for him."
"I can't advise much, Vengeful, except, perhaps, to hit his gun-positions with small shot and his belt with big ones. Hit below the water-line—it's rulable—and keep your head by all means. I've lost all my heavy guns and am soft as pot-metal; but I'll stay in until he puts me out."
"No, stay out. It's my argument."
"Not under one screw, my boy. Your turning-circle is too small for fair-play. Here he comes. Good luck to you, Vengeful."
Black Jack was coming out, belching dark, flame-flecked smoke from his two immense funnels, and with his four heavy turret-guns cocked in the air and swinging from side to side as though to limber his muscles. He rolled and pitched and staggered in the sea, half blinded and drunk with rage; and this, with the hoarse, inarticulate roar of steam from his iron lungs, apprised Vengeful that, even had he desired it, no compromise was possible. At a mile's distance the Russian lowered his guns; but Vengeful struck the first blow—he hit him with a twelve-inch shell on the bulge of a bow sponson, and though the sponson was shattered the angle of impact was too great, and the shell glanced off without exploding. However, it sent the host of bugs infesting the Russian scurrying to hatches and apertures, and Vengeful now noticed that his own rather excited collection had sought safety within his Harveyized cuticle. He hoped that none would get hurt, for he had begun to like them; but when an answering eight-inch shell crashed into his superstructure, exploding within, he gave up this hope in the momentary agony of his own pain, and he knew by their plaintive buzzing that many were injured and perhaps killed. But there was no time to further consider them. Black Jack was now pounding him with tons of steel, and he responded in kind, while old Warhorse boomed and blustered with his own futile gun-fire, but did little harm; for on the few occasions when he could hit the enemy his shells exploded without entering the thick hide.
On the inner of two concentric circles Vengeful proceeded with barely steerage way. On the outer, Black Jack charged around at full speed. They were practically breast to breast. Each used smokeless powder, and no obstructing clouds obscured their vision; each carried four twelve-inch and a broadside battery of eight-inch guns, seven to a side; they were equally equipped with secondary "murdering guns"—the small calibered, quick-fire rifles so menacing to gun-ports and apertures; and both were possessed of the deadly, pivoted tubes amidships from which the Whitehead torpedoes could be driven. Roaring and flaming, they drilled each other's softer parts with solid shot and exploding shell, and peppered each other with a horizontal hail from their secondary guns, which rattled on the steel walls like rain on a roof. Soon, over all this riot and roar, came a mournful cry from Warhorse, and Vengeful looked, as he could, but for a moment saw nothing but a cloud of steam and yellow smoke; then out of it emerged the old warrior, low on his side and down by the head. He had mistakenly swung out of the circle in an effort to flank Black Jack, but only laid himself open to the unused starboard battery of eight-inch guns. This fire, directed solely at him, proved his undoing. With his boilers punctured and magazines exploded, he settled lower and lower; then, lifting his nose high out of water, he slid, gasping and gurgling, to the bottom of the sea. A few black, struggling mites reached the surface and swam a few moments; then a single mighty bubble rose from the depths, burst in a yellow cloud, and overwhelmed them.
Raging with fury at the death of his friend. Vengeful now fought with a strength and ferocity which would have soon ended the combat in his favor had not a slight difference between himself and Black Jack come into play as a factor in the interchange of force. The Russian's armor-belt was of equal thickness from bow to stern; Vengeful's, thicker than Black Jack's amidship, was thinner at the ends by several inches. And far down beneath the protective deck in the stern, shielded only by the thin armor-belt, was a vital part which deserved better protection—the tiller and steering-gear. A twelve-inch shell punctured the belt at the water-line, burst within, and parts of it, tearing their way downward through the frail protective deck, shattered the tiller and threw the rudder out of commission. He was comparatively helpless and in awful pain—able to steam ahead at reduced speed and turn in a circle by the pressure of his one propeller, but utterly beyond his own control. Before he could stop his starboard engines this circle, contrary to the one he had been steering, had begun; and frantic backing only placed him in a worse position, for it threw him around, facing the Russian, open to his raking fire, and unable to use his broadside batteries. The Russian halted, not slow to take advantage of his helplessness, and before he could swing himself farther around with the reversed starboard engines, he was drilled fore and aft, and half his eight-inch guns were dismounted. Now he gloomily remembered Warhorse's confident and defiant predictions at the anchorage of the treatment that Black Jack was to receive when they met. The humiliation of his position overcame his pain and momentary doubt, and when able to train his remnant of guns on his enemy, he blazed away again with renewed pertinacity, hoping for a favorable moment when he could steam suddenly ahead and ram the Russian.
But the moment did not come; and though his fire was reducing Black Jack from a high-sized battle-ship to a shapeless floating scrap-heap, he himself was suffering equally, if not more. Little by little his superstructure was shot to pieces, and one by one his guns were upset until he had none left but his four large turret-guns and one eight-inch gun amidships, while Black Jack's armament, well protected by armor, was still intact. In his extremity he thought of his torpedoes, but put the thought from him at once. He would die fighting, but would not first dishonor himself. So, still fighting, he awaited the end.
Yet there are craft which have no such scruples about the use of torpedoes. Stricken as he was, he noticed a commotion in the circle of spectators, and he looked for the cause. Just within the line was a small spot, and on each side of it a high wave, crested with foam. It grew larger, and as it grew it took on the form of a face—a determined little face with two defiant hawse-pipe eyes. It was Dolly, and she was coming: she was in a hurry. Gloomily speculating on her errand, wondering what was to be her next performance, Vengeful remarked a cessation of Black Jack's fire and looked back at him. He, too, was coming; he had swung himself toward Vengeful and was charging down on him, to ram—to finish the fight with one solid, smashing blow that would kill him. Faster and faster he rushed until but four hundred yards separated him from Vengeful; but faster still came Miss Dolly; then she shot between them, and only now did the demoralized Vengeful realize that her tubes were trained to port—toward the Russian. One by one as she came to bear three pointed cylinders leaped into the sea, and three streaks of bubbles darted toward the Russian; but before they reached him Dolly was riddled into a sieve by the shower of small shot which Black Jack sent from his murdering guns. Whimpering with pain, she passed out of range; but her work was done. Black Jack tossed a jagged and torn nose nearly out of water; then this nose twisted sidewise; then he quivered convulsively and a camel's hump arose amidships, while the pile of scrap-iron topping it was thrown aside. A third convulsion racked him, and his whole after end disintegrated; then over the shattered hulk lifted a mighty, many-hued cloud—all this to the music of thunderous reports and crashings as torpedoes burst and magazines exploded. Black Jack was broken in pieces, and his divided parts, wrenched asunder from unequal stress of entering water, sank separately. He had uttered no word—he was killed by the first torpedo.
Vengeful breathed hoarsely; he was sick and faint from the reaction of feeling, half dead from pain and fatigue, but yet able to rouse himself as a small craft, low down in the water, crept up to his side.
"Bless you for this, Dolly," he said. "I'll never forget it—never. I was about done for when you came."
"Yes," she said, mournfully. "But I knew it was your first fight, Mr. Vengeful, and that you were also at a disadvantage, too. I'm very sorry, now. And then, too"—she was still lower in the water and settling rapidly—"you see, I'm English myself, and I never liked him at all. I told you—you remember? I told you at home"—she was gasping now, and very close to his side—"and then, too, I love you."
She went under as she spoke the last word, but not far. While she had been talking. Vengeful had been acting—and never before had he so thoroughly appreciated the intelligence and efficiency of his entomological contingent. They aided him mightily, and just in time he slipped two mooring-chains under her; then he lifted her up.
"Now, little girl," he said, gently, when she was able to listen, " when we're doctored up a little we'll go home. And you can tell the fleet that I have found a sweetheart."