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Updated: June 28, 2025
I was awakened by a tremendous crash on the bridge-deck above my cabin, a heeling over of the ship that nearly dumped me out of my berth, and what seemed like a solid spout of water pouring in through my open weather porthole, with the wind howling a devil's death-song through the rigging and an uninterrupted smash bang! above my head.
They seemed, indeed, to be heaving their own vessel out, instead of heaving the other craft up, and it was not long before they had the Swash heeling over toward the wreck several streaks. The strain, moreover, on everything, became not only severe, but somewhat menacing.
I could not help thinking of our fine old admiral, and wished that he might be among them; but he was not, for he was writing in his cabin at the time, and when the captain tried to let him know that the ship was sinking, he found the door so jammed by her heeling over that he could not open it, and was obliged to rush aft and make his escape through a stern-port to save his life.
And so are the tenants of this musty old row, shady locksmiths with a tendency toward skeleton keys; ingenious upholsterers who indulged in paper-hanging on the sly; shoemakers who did half-soling and heeling, their day's work set to dry on the window-sill, not to mention those addicted to the use of the piano, banjo, or harp, as well as the wig and dress makers who lightened the general gloom.
However, she just flared without exploding, and we continued our cruise up the coast just in time to overhaul at racing speed a perfect regatta of dhows heeling over to every stitch of canvas in their efforts to make Jeddah before we could get at them, for they had seen the smoke of that burning oil-dhow and realised that the cat was about.
And their Foot Guards: Have ye met the fellows marching? with their feet turned out, flat as my laundress's irons, and the muscles of their calves depending on the joints to get 'm along, for elasticity never gave those bones of theirs a springing touch; and their bearskins heeling behind on their polls; like pot-house churls daring the dursn't to come on. Of course they can fight. Who said no?
I fancied I saw the mutineers rushing aft; but instead of ten Lascars, there were fifty or one hundred dark-skinned fellows, with sharp krisses in their hands, threatening destruction to all who opposed them. I was awoke by the cry of "All hands, shorten sail." Slipping on my clothes, I sprang on deck. The sea was running high, the ship was heeling over to a strong breeze.
A great mass of boiling foam rose suddenly beside the Kansas, which was just heeling to port, and this was followed immediately by sheets of flame and black clouds of smoke which burst from every hole and crevice in the sides and the turrets. The Kansas listed heavily to starboard and then disappeared immediately in the waves. The torpedo must have exploded in an ammunition chamber.
Tisdale paused. The Aquila had come under the lee of Bainbridge Island. The Olympics were out of sight, as the yacht, heeling to the first tide rip, began to turn into the Narrows, and the batteries of Fort Ward commanded her bows; a beautiful wooded point broke the line of the opposite shore. It rimmed a small cove. But Mrs. Weatherbee was not interested; her attention remained fixed on Tisdale.
No sound, no animate motion came from aboard that apparition, as she fell astern. A shudder of horror ran across the Wolverine's quarter-deck. A wraith ship, peopled with skeletons, would have been less dreadful to their sight than the brisk and active desolation of the heeling schooner. "Been deserted since early last night," said Trendon hoarsely. "How can you tell that?" asked Barnett.
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