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Benson, if you always hit as full and well, you'll be an expert torpedoist." "Why, it's nothing but holding the nose of your own boat full on the other craft, amidships, and the torpedo itself does the rest," uttered the young submarine skipper. "That's it," nodded Lieutenant Danvers. "But, when you're below the surface, the problem becomes a harder one."
Then, with a final sigh the breeze died away altogether, the topsails hung limp and dew-saturated from the yards, the fore topmast staysail sheet drooped amidships, and the Mercury swung broadside-on to the scarcely perceptible swell. Abandoning the now useless wheel, I walked forward to the skylight in which the cabin lamp, turned low, burned dimly and had a look at the barometer.
"Get off the poop, you four-legged farmers! Sweat, will I? All right; but you'll sweat, the both of you, before you see your friends again! Here, Mr. Billings," he roared to the first mate amidships, "and Mr. Snelling! Come up here, and turn these men to!" The two mates answered and appeared. "Turn them to," said the Captain, speaking slowly and softly.
So far, they had run before the gale, but to bring the craft's side to it was a different thing. She set her lips as she watched Thirlwell haul the spritsail sheet. He was cautious and for a few moments brought the craft's head up with the paddle and kept the small sail fluttering. Then he let her go and she lurched down until her side amidships was in the water.
"By virtue of my sacred office," said he, "I adjure him to depart from amidships." "Na, na!" answered Isaac; "and can parson also answer for the plank that has burst?" Then the parson bethought him of the evil case he was in. "The man seems to me mortally strong, and we have great need of him," said he; "nor is it any great sin, methinks, to help a servant of God's over the sea.
A mountain of foam-crowned water rose up and the commander of the French destroyer congratulated himself on the annihilation of at least one of the English warships, but the next moment the grey-blue, almost invisible shape of the Ithuriel leapt up out of the semi-darkness, and her long pointed ram struck amidships, cut him down to the waterline, and almost before the two halves of his vessel had sunk the same fate had befallen the third destroyer.
Mac jumped on his fire-step, and, looking down the trench, saw beyond it sure enough the poor old Triumph with a heavy list towards him. Some of the fellows had seen the torpedo strike her right amidships, and a great column of water rise high in the air and fall on her decks. From all directions destroyers, mine-sweepers and pinnaces were concentrating on the doomed vessel.
Subsequently we learned that a huge flat beam projecting amidships from beneath the seat operated a brake which we above were supposed to manipulate; but being quite ignorant as to the ethics and mechanics of this strange street-car system, we swung and swayed at times quite breathlessly.
"The poor old Rattler," Captain Glass lamented. "Nothing of the sort," Grief answered. "In a week we'll have her raised, new timbers amidships, and we'll be on our way." And to the Queen, "How is it with you, Sister?" "Naumoo is gone, and Motauri, Brother, but Fuatino is ours again. The day is young. Word shall be sent to all my people in the high places with the goats.
I murmured to that luminous appearance: "Keep the helm right amidships." It answered in a tone of patient suffering: "Right amidships, sir." Then I descended to the quarter-deck. It was impossible to tell whence the blow would come. To look round the ship was to look into a bottomless, black pit. The eye lost itself in inconceivable depths.
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