davit, and at last with increasing momentum dived into the midst

of the struggling victims screaming upon the face of the waters.

Now I saw men spring to the rail and leap into the ocean. The deck

was tilting to an impossible angle. Nobs braced himself with all

four feet to keep from slipping into the scuppers and looked up

into my face with a questioning whine. I stooped and stroked

his head.

"Come on, boy!" I cried, and running to the side of the ship,

dived headforemost over the rail. When I came up, the first

thing I saw was Nobs swimming about in a bewildered sort of way

a few yards from me. At sight of me his ears went flat, and his

lips parted in a characteristic grin.

The submarine was withdrawing toward the north, but all the time

it was shelling the open boats, three of them, loaded to the

gunwales with survivors. Fortunately the small boats presented

a rather poor target, which, combined with the bad marksmanship

of the Germans preserved their occupants from harm; and after a

few minutes a blotch of smoke appeared upon the eastern horizon

and the U-boat submerged and disappeared.

All the time the lifeboats has been pulling away from the danger

of the sinking liner, and now, though I yelled at the top of my

lungs, they either did not hear my appeals for help or else did

not dare return to succor me. Nobs and I had gained some little

distance from the ship when it rolled completely over and sank.

We were caught in the suction only enough to be drawn backward

a few yards, neither of us being carried beneath the surface.

I glanced hurriedly about for something to which to cling.

My eyes were directed toward the point at which the liner had

disappeared when there came from the depths of the ocean the

muffled reverberation of an explosion, and almost simultaneously

a geyser of water in which were shattered lifeboats, human bodies,

steam, coal, oil, and the flotsam of a liner's deck leaped high

above the surface of the sea--a watery column momentarily marking

the grave of another ship in this greatest cemetery of the seas.

When the turbulent waters had somewhat subsided and the sea had

ceased to spew up wreckage, I ventured to swim back in search of

something substantial enough to support my weight and that of

Nobs as well. I had gotten well over the area of the wreck when

not a half-dozen yards ahead of me a lifeboat shot bow foremost