Amid steady crashes, Madden awaited stoically for the shot that would erase the Vulcan from the face of the sea. There came another splintering shock; the upper half of the foremast made a curious jump, and came down with its rigging and plunged overboard in the rushing water. The obstruction instantly choked down the tug's speed. Every man in the crew seized axe, saw, anything, and rushed forward in a fury of impatience, hacking, chopping, sawing, working through the wreckage and cutting the ropes with jackknives, in an effort to clear the tug of debris. After an intolerable while, the last ratlines snapped like pistol shots, the whizzing end of a rope struck a sailor and laid him out as if clubbed, then the foremast fell away and the Vulcan rushed forward again.
“Look ahead, Madden!” shouted Caradoc in the uproar. “We've got to run among thicker fields than these!”
By this time the tug's rockets were spent and the German cruisers were rushing down a line of gigantic smoke-palms that were planted by the little vessel.
“You might as well surrender,” called the
