Page:Robert William Cole - The Struggle for Empire; A Story of the Year 2236 (1900).djvu/118

man was stripped to the waist, but even then they were streaming with perspiration. Thousands fell down at their posts from sheer exhaustion, and, as there was no one to take their places, the captains had to cease firing and use their rams and other destroying apparatus until they had recovered from their exhaustion. Every time a compartment was pierced the air rushed out, and all the inmates died, their bodies being frequently burst open by the pressure of the air inside. Without a word of warning the shot came crashing through the armour plating, or a piece of the side was torn off by a torpedo. When the force Ednogen was focussed on to a ship, the men in the part where it fell were suddenly seized by violent spasms. They twisted their bodies into every conceivable form. They writhed on the floor like snakes, they clutched at the guns and levers, and then they fell back dead, the blood streaming from their mouths and nostrils. Sometimes these terrible invisible