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Show -, ,r 1,1 . II - - --- I .... , , , Herewith is presented the tenth installment of a fiction serial dealing with what wight happen should European powers, after they had settled their own differences, differ-ences, wage war upon the United States. The author, one of the best fiction writers in the country, has based his story upon a thorough understanding of military, naval, and internal conditio'ns in the United States and upon a sound knowledge of military and economic history. The story will cause you to realize the critical situation in which this country and you, your neighbors, and your family are placed , by the let-well-enough-alone attitude of the pacifists. SYNOPSIS. 7n Elgin, III., live the Ashby (amity, consintinp J of Nathan Ashby, owner of the Ashby Brass com- pany and his wfe; n daughter, Nellie, married to Bob Wendell, a navy lieutenant; and Jim Ashby, en, engaged to Agnei Ware. Nathan Ashby is the archtype of pacifist, deaf to the warnings of impending danger to America. Almost out of a clear sky news is received that the U. S. scout cruiser Salem, proceeding against orders, in the ' North Atlantic has encountered the fleet of the league of former European enemies and has been runk, a deliberate act of war. Bob is recalled to ; Newport Newt. Spies are discovered In the Ashby works, and evidence of a league of spies that (warm the country and are even enlisted in the ' army I held by Jim Ashby, who for a time is held prisoner in ono of the spies' rendezvous in a fashionable residence in Chicago. Jim after his ; adventure returns to Elgin War Is on and Jim has eigntficd his Intention to enlist. Bob arrives In ..Newport News to find that enemy aeroplanes have been dropping bombs around the arsenal ' and on the deck of the Aricona, killing a number ' of men. The U. S. army aeroplanes are inadequate r against the highly specialized air craft divisions of the enemy. With the Arizona's personnel cut down to man nine planters and dcitroyers, Bob la appointed second divisional officer and the i droadnaught steams out for Hampton Roads and to encage the enemy ships that ore bombarding , th coatt town. CHAPTER XI. , THE LURE. I ThHE upper works of three vessels tho ? I masts and fire control tops and funnels 1 1 of a first line drcodnaught or battle cruiser, the masts and tops and fun-' fun-' nels of two other large war vessels showed ,, above the horizon to the east- Twenty-two i thousand yards or more than twelve- miles ; was tho estimate of the distance as Bob Wcn- 'i dell was standing- on the quarter deck with ,' other gunnery officers ready for battle before 1 i the bugles called them to their battlo stations. The hulls of the enemy's ships were then entirely invisible, and the officers on the quarter quar-ter deck of the Arizona, could sec nothing" at '; all of any hostile vessels except the three. Only Starncs and tho other men in the Arizona's Ari-zona's tops a hundred and twenty feet higher ! could make out tho hulls of the larger vea- ' sels of tho enemy and could see, besides, that ; they were accompanied by smaller craft Yet ; ! the Pennsylvania, now barely 2,000 yards : , ahead of the Arizona, already was engaged ; great gcyscrfl of spray spurted up abeam the Pennsylvania where the enemy's shells were t striking in the water -and a gun In the for- i ; i ward turret of the American dreadnaught was making reply. ' " The leading ship of the enemy's line is an armored cruiser of the Pera class," tho information came down from tho tops a Pera W cruiser meant, aa every one knew, a ship of w thirty knots speed and four 11 inch guns, four- teen of 7 inch. " No. 2 is a battle cruiser of '. tho Carthago class " that meant eight 13 inch guns in an armored vessel of twenty-eight knots. " No. 8 is another Pera ; they arc at-; at-; i tended by eleven destroyers now In sight. The ; Pennsylvania is testing the range of the rear ship and that vessel and the Carthage are replying." ' ' Bob "Wendell gazed at the tops of tho thrco ' . great ships through his grass. The late ofter- ' noon sun shone down upon the sea ; visibility, J for the time of the day, was at its beat ; the ' v sunlight showed the upper works of the en- ', - cmys ships in clear, sharp silhouette to the j ' Americans, while to the men on the Carthago 1 and tho Peras tho Arizona and the Pcnnsyl- ; vania must appear to bo steaming down a dazzling lane of light. The sun must be dl-s dl-s rectly in the eyes of the enemy's fire control V- spotters, their sight setters and turret trainers :', and gun pointers. It was impossible to think I that the enemy had chosen such a position to offer battlo; it was Impossible to think that that force of the enemy had come to offer battle at alL Their three broadsides did not equal the broadsides of the Arizona and the Pennsylvania; armor protection was all in favor fa-vor of tho drcadnaughts ; speed, and speed a alone on advantngo of seven or nine knots , adhered to the enemy. They had come trust- Ilng to that to pave them when tho American ships should draw near enough to threaten them ; they had appeared, not to offer battle, but to lure tho slower American, ships out. " They're the cruisers which have been coming down our coast raising hell," Ross said to Wcndoll. " They've sunk four vcescIs and put the passengers and crewe in small boats in that sea to row ashore ; and they've been shelling shell-ing everything in sight; they shelled the hotels Bob nodded ; he had heard. Those ships out there had bombarded helpless cities, murdered mur-dered men, women, and children in little coast villages to attain tho very end they now were gaining to force tho American battleships to come out. After slaughtering and destroying destroy-ing all day thoy had showed themselves a weaker, inferior force before the bay where the division of the newest and most powerful riiips of the American fleet lay cleared for action Their spies, undoubtedly, had relayed to their commanders by wireless that the word had come from Washington for tho Americans to move to the protection of the seaboard; lie enemy knew that, whethor tho American jommandcrs wished it or not. the American iattlcships must come out. " They're trying to draw us upon mines, of eourso," Baid Ross. " Or upon submarines." " Well, if they're playing that game they'll find two nt it, perhaps. Six of our submarines subma-rines went out, submerged, a couple of houn ago; they're waiting off to the south. That'i why tho Pennsylvania's pretending to wall for us; we're giving the subs time to gc' placed." " They're starting to withdraw to th south," Wendell said, his hnnds clonchin; tight as the forward gun of tho Pcnnsylvanli roared again. The enemy's ships Indeed were definitely moving off, but not so swiftly as to at once discourage pursuit ; they remained just beyond or just at tho limit of extrcmo range at which main battery guns might hit, and as tho Carthage and the two Peras withdrew shells 'from their turrets continued to spurt up 6pray before the Pennsylvania. That ship forced ahead faster, and now Bob Wendell felt the Arizona's deck vibrating with the tremor of turbines pushed " full speed ahead." Tho how wave piled up in a white crest which splashed up and over the forecastle as tho great ship dipped ; more spray splattered up as the Arizona, following the Pennsylvania, altered its course to the south in pursuit of the enemy's ships. The men of the gun crews who had been below bathing were crowding out now upon the'fore-castle the'fore-castle deck ; they were nude to the waist, and the hot afternoon sunlight gleamed on tho pink and brown flesh of their bodies and sparkled spar-kled on the drops of spray splashed upon them Far ahead of the Pennsylvania aud well away on both beams the American destroyers the Cassin and Cummings, the Aylwin and Balch, and two others tossed and tipped as they dashed through the waves on their' watch for the enemy's submcrslblcs ; far in tho air overhead two American biplanes circled, their wireless sending back word that, so far, no mines and no enemy submarines had been sighted. Wendell gazed now and then at these auxiliary aux-iliary craft, but the men of the gun crews, crowding eagerly forward, Ignored everything but the Pennsylvania, which still was firing slowly and singly, one gun from number 1 turret, now a gun from number 2 ; another gun from number 1 ; again from number 2. The Arizona's gun crews pointed in their envy and cried out to ono another ; scraps of their exclamations came back to Wendell on the wind. Puff! Another gun fired on the Pennsylvania ; and now, as soon as that could have been reloaded, all six guns of the two forward turrets went together in a salvo which hid, for a space of second, all the fore part of the ship. At tho sight of the great yellow cloud belched before the turrets a cheer burst from the gun crews of the Arizona ; the thunder thun-der of the salvo came down tho wind and swelled the cheer into a wild, exultant shout from the men below as well as those above. For every ono who could hear or see knew what the salvo meant; the Pennsylvania was no longer testing the range ; the salvo told that she had found It. And in the Interval of suspense suspense after the gas of the powder pow-der had puffed and been blown away from the guns, after the sound had rumbled back on the wind to the Arizona during the slow score of seconds while tho six great shells must still bo in flight toward the enemy's ships, officers and men spun about and, with heads bent back, stared at their foretop. Would the " spotters " up there see splashes of spray this time beside the Carthage or would it be "a hit"? a.ne answer Dooraca in tne alarm nous sounding "general quarters-" and the bugles calling all men to battle stations. Leaping at the call, as he had responded a hundred times in practice, Wendell stepped from the sun-ehino sun-ehino of the wind-swept deck into the turret and the yellow light of the battle lanterns. He took his placo at the rear of the guns, and as his men went to their stations he gazed through the telescope periscope which let him look out above tho top of tho turret toward the upper works of the enemy's vessels far off to tho cast. He found himself repeating his directions in a voice not strange: "We fire at the rear ship in the line ! " At his command he felt the mighty turret revolving slowly beneath him ; tho turret trainer and the guu pointers, at their places at the perlscopo sights, were bringing the three monster guns to bear. Every man was trying to be as calm as though the command which had been repeated was simply, " Fire at target No. 3." But not even Holt the turret captain, who had made the record for his ship at the last gun trials on the ranges was entirely en-tirely steady. If Wendell were killed there was no other officer in the turret to succeed ; the nearest would be Wayne, the ensign, in tho handling room below. Holt act his lips and clinched his powerful hands. The heat in the turret was stifling; fans sucked at the air, bnt sweat streamed over the baro bodies of the men standing idle tho sight Betters, the gunner's gun-ner's mates, the " strikers," and the firing pointer, with the electric buzzer strapped over his bare chest, rising and falling as ho panted for breath. The sound of the Pennsylvania's gnns came, muffled, into the turret; but envy for the sister ship was gone. The Arizona soon would bo in action and would show them. At the call to battle stations the Arizona Ari-zona was only a couple of thousand yards astern the Pennsylvania, which had just come within extreme range of the enemy. But the i enemy's ships were withdrawing; had they begun to flee so fast that the Arizona would not have a ehot? " Stand by 1" .Now: "Initial range, twenty thousand; dc-: dc-: flection, five four!' Tho voice which first gave It spoke on the telephone circuit; simultaneously tho visual I bignal clicked and tho range and the deflection stood out in sharp figures In yards and points i "20,000," deflection " f 4 "meant four , points to tho right. A voice, clear and slow, t sounding from the speaking tube which need-t need-t cd no dependeuco upon electric circuits repeated re-peated the Instruction. 0 But the sight tetters, helmcted with the tclc-; tclc-; phone headpieces strapped over their ears, al- 1 rcudy were making their adjustment. The dls- aasS- jgggjggagag-g ySS1 jjliH"'H'lllBpP' LTg?T null , n nn if f H tance was greater than that at which even first rangingshots might be fired ; but tho Arizona was closing with the enemy ; the Carthage and the two Peras were offering themselves yet and the range was shortening. " Load !" Wendell had heard, moments before, the rumbling below which told thut, in tho handling han-dling room, the shells and the powder bags for his three mighty gum were waiting upon the cars. He turned from hh periscope as tho steel traps to tho handling room opened and tho ammunition cars came to place behind the open breeches of the guns. The crows, sweat- dell's turret, hidden behind their bulkheads, were ready ; they were bulwarked up, but they were aimed as a unit, a pressure on Iho firing key in Loudon's hand could firo them all together. to-gether. The buzzer on Loudeu's breast was tounding now for the simultaneous discharge of all ; but tho man strained less ns ho stooped and he waited-only an instant before his fingers fin-gers closed on the key. " Up one hundred ; ono right 1 Up one hundred hun-dred ; one right I" Corrections were coming both for elevation and deflection. So all six shells had missed ; they had fallen short a little and bad gone astern. Wero the enemy's ships satisfied with having drawn the American ships out so far; were they pushing at full speed to run away? Smoke not the yellow, gaseous clouds from the guns junt fired again but a wide, black pall which did not clear away, but rose higher and spread thicker and thicker aud blinded Wendell's glass as his guns wero ready to fire again. Tho smoke, blown by the wind, clouded cloud-ed over the battleship and more smoke and more poured up ahead and on both bides aud shut out all sight from turret number two. The forward turret also was silenced by It, shrouded In blackness a heavy, oil smelling, booty pall through which the Arizona now rushed. It came from the American destroyers destroy-ers which. had been trailing only tho usual streamers of brown behind them as they raced 1 ahead of the battleships; now they hod flung I themselves across the battleships' course with I funnels belching up the black pall yvhich camo to curtain the ship ; and, aa the Arizona's i great guns wero silent, the sharp, incessant i " pang " oE the destroyers' quick firers came back on the wind. i "Submarines! The regent's submarines!" The smoke as well as the clatter of the torpedo tor-pedo defense guns proclaimed that; the destroyers, de-stroyers, sighting periscopes, were throwing the screen of smoke to hide tho battleship, whilo with their four Inch guns1 they were driving ing and silent, rammed iu the monster shells, thrust the great powder bags iu behind, and closed the breech of each gun. The ammunition cars, empty, dropped below, the trap doors closing above them. At each gun the plug-w man put in the primer. The three fourteen inch guns were ready, each separated from the next by a steel bulkhead, to limit, as much as possible, an accident in the turret ; a few yards further forward and lower, the three great pieces of number one turret, too, were rcadj, their muzzles lifted to extreme elevation eleva-tion toward the eastern sky. " Range, One, nine, O double O ! Deflection five four!" the telephone said. The visuals displayed the figures in black and white again. " Commence firing with one gun !" the order came on the telephone ns the sight setters sprang to their sights. The voice tube repeated repeat-ed the order and the firing poiuter, holding his electric button in hand, stooped and strained at his telescope to follow closer the pointing of the guns. Up and down, up and down, up aud down, as the waves passed under the ship, the deck moved ; but, as it moved and as the ship steamed forward and the target ship nlso moved, the trainer and the gun pointers worked ceaselessly turning the turret and elevutlug and lowering the guns to keep the sights steadily ' on " the target ; but, as the firing pointer crouched at his telescope, the cross hairs which divided his field of sight rose now above the funnels of the third bhip on the horizon ; now, as the gun dropped, too much of the gray, white flecked sea appeared ; for a flashing instant in-stant only a frightful infinitesimal of a sec-" ond the far away funnels, the masts, and the bridge of the enemy ship showed exactly in the cross hairs of the sight. At that infinitesimal the gun must fire; the firing pointer belter than any one else knew that as he btraiued, sweating, and fingering his firing key. "Bzzzzzz!" The buzzer hung against his chest now was sounding tho signal to fire. For an interval mensured and noted in th'j chief fire control station from which the signal came inc ouzzcr wouiu souuu ; me nnng pointer could choose when, during those counted count-ed seconds, the gun was " on " the tnrgot and he should loose the charge; but if he did not fire while the buzzer still was sounding tho turret must wait instruction from tho tops again ; the sights must be altered, the gun aimed again, that chunco for dealing destruction destruc-tion be gone. 11 Bzzzzzz !" the buzzer was still going ; but It would not go forever. Had it not been going go-ing for minutes now? Bob Wendell jerked, stiff and strained, toward the firing pointer, ne tried to speak, but ho could not till he wet his lips, then, as he saw the pointer's face the rebuke stayed on his tonguo. Tho gun pointer's point-er's face was drawn as in agony, his arms strained and stretched as in torture; his lips moved ceaselessly, soundlessly, aad his fingers played with the firing koy as a surgeon's taking up a hcalpcl; tho man's eyes, glassy In their steadiness, stared through the telescope. Too much of the sky was in the field of sight; but now the deck was dropping again and the buzzer still was sounding. The firing pointer's fingers pressed together, and the monster bulk of steel beside him leaped back in recoil, while tho air before the turret was yellow and ethcr-ous ethcr-ous with blazing gas and the ship shuddprcd nt the shock of the discharge. The firing pointer, falling back as the doors from tho handling room opened again and the car camo up for the reload, gazed toward Wendell. Wen-dell. Bob, counting the score o seconds during dur-ing which tho shell would bo In flight, said to himself, "Bight, nine." Then, -"d, "That was right, Louden; fire when you're on tho target!" He saw that the gun was reloaded and from his station gazed through his periscope peri-scope out over the sea. If he missed he and the firing pointer and the turret trainer, the sight setters, and the rest, 'the captain on the bridge, Garry and his men in the top, the executive officer in the chief fire control station, the engineers, and all tho others throughout the ship who lived then only to send shells true and straight from the guns if they all missed, a spurt of spray would show somewhere ten miles away. If the shell hit, nothing would appear that was, nothing would show right away. A little later the target ship might show a list or a fire might break out. But, in any case, Wendell and the crew in the turret who had pointed and fired the gun could scarcely hope to sec it- Only Garry and his spotters iu the tops i would surely see; perhaps the captain and the officers in the conning tower might see; but word" would come to the turret as an instruction instruc-tion for a correction for the guns, if it was a miss ; or, if it was a hit, " No change !" "Down five hundred; one risht!" That meant a miss, of course; the shell had gone over and splashed in the water nnd Garry had seen the splash and estimated the miss at five hundred yards.. " One right!" That meant that the shell had flown to the stern also ; the original estimate had not allowed enough deflection de-flection for the speed of the Arizona and tho relative speed of the funnels and masts out there ten miles away. But the shell, at least, had gone over; it had not fallen short. A second sec-ond bhot already was testiug the new range. " Up three hundred !" The range now was " bracketed." A shot at ninotceu thousand yards had gone over; another an-other nt eighteen thousaud five hundred had fallen bhort. The right range was between. The sight setter for the gun which had fired already had altered his bight again ; the firing pointer crouched and strained ; the buzzer on his breast sounded ; tho gun leaped back. A half mile ahead and to the right of the Arizona a giant wave of spray spurted into tho air; another nearer as the encm3''.s shell ricocheted; rico-cheted; it wns by without damage, nnd Boh Weudcll gave no more thought to It He ignored ig-nored us completely the position of the destroyers de-stroyers dashing ahead on both sides of the Arizona; he lmd. forgotten entirely, since the first loading of the gun, to look for the American Ameri-can biplanes in the sky. The shell from his gun wns still in flight ? the guu again was reloaded re-loaded and ready. "No change!" the voice on the telephone circuit cried. The visuals confirmed it; tho voice through the speaking tube' said it once more. " No chnngc !" That meant a hit. " Fire by salvos !" Salvos ! All eix forward guns together, both turrets Grintr nt once. The other guns In Wen- 7 . .' the subracrsiblcs, blind, below. But, before they were fired upon, hrfd the biibmarincs taken a successful sight? Had they started their torpedoes straight on their ways through the water? Bob Wendell turned from the smoky cloud outside the turret to the light of the battle lanterns which showed him his men standing idle, staring at each other and helplessly waiting beside the uselessly loaded load-ed guns in the armored trap of the turret, while, hidden in the smoke, the Arizona sheered suddenly and altered bpced to try to escape, at the last instant, the strike of the torpedoes which had been launched. GOD IN THE HURRICANE. There is a span of minutes following the learning that torpedoes have been dispatched at a ship in action and before the instant of their impact or of their passing harmlessly which resembles few other intervals. The time is not loug, usually ; but, since the effective effec-tive range of a torpedo has lengthened to more than 0,000 yards, the the interval may bo almost ten minutes ; and during those minutes there is little for any one except the engine crew and navigators to do but to think. All preparation for torpedo attack had been mado on the Arizona. I-ong before, when the gun crews were running to their battle stations, their mates below had closed every water tight door, isolated each fire room and the engine room, and the heavy "collision "col-lision " mat was ready to be brought up and lowered over the sido and drawn over the chasm, which a torpedo would make, in an effort to stay the first inrush of water. There was absolutely nothing for Bob Wendell to do after his guns were loaded again but to stand silent and cool before his men, waiting cither for tho clouds of smoke to clear away aud show the gun pointers their target, or i... .1.. 1. -.,1 .imncmAii nf thn frtf- ancr me graau turn inmuwivu v.. .-..- -. podoes to direct his division in order as tho bugles would be blowing tho command, " Abaudon ship 1" The bugles, if they blew, would not call for practice this time. A third perhaps half of the officers and men might bo saved; that was the English experience with battleships hard hit by mlno or torpedo. The others would go down with the ship. Wendell's throat contracted spasmodically as tho vision mastered him for the moment; Nellie was bo-fore bo-fore him his young wife with wide eyes and brave little lips as sho met him at the door when he returned after the fight with Ingouf. when sho held tho telegram of recall in her hand. For a second Bob seemed to feel her weight in his nrms as ho carried hor, close against him, up the stairs. Then, etrangely. ho saw Garry's little boy the straight smiling smil-ing little fellow with tho Arizona ribbon on his lint ; in the next Instant Bob was himself again and waB conscious that ho was facing Louden, tho firing pointer, who still held to the firing key, though for the moment Lou-den's Lou-den's eyes, too, wero staring at nothing very far away. In the suspenso the motion of the ship had become moro menacing the heave of tho great waves against the steel sides, tho sweep of the spray over tho deck, and tho noiso of the wind. In such a aea few would bo saved If the ship went down. Some one behind a bulkhead swore vlolent- i j; Bob did not try to discover who. It was :''i the snapping of nerves during inaction; nnd the outburst was against the smoke the M lamned, crazy soot which tho destroyors wero , 'M sending np and which shut everything away , ,vB and stopped the gunB from firing. ' j IH A deep, rumbling detonation very differ- , IH cnt from the banging resound of the guns of ! IH the destroyers came down the wind; tho H noise of the "fours" diminished. H Wendell tried again to make out soma- H thing through his periscope but tho smoka H was still all about tho Arizona. H "What do you make of that, Holt?" he : H asked of tho turret captain. " Torpedo?" H " Yes, sir ; one of the" destroyers gone, I H should say, sir." H One of the destroyers gone! That, bow, H was plain. The smoke about the Arizona H was tinning and, aa Bob's field of vision ex- H tended a couple of hundred yards forward and i H to the left, he saw a destroyer sinking by the H stern. It was ono of the newer and larger , H of the de3troyers a long, four funneled boat H with two masts and with sharp prow pointing ' H to the sky. It was the Aylwin, or the Balch, t H which had been on guard ahead the few mln- jH utcs before, its guns going, its funnels belch- ' H ing smoko for the hiding of the Arizona; IH smoke still streamed, from tho forward fun-' '. H ncl as the destroyer sank; but its guns were i H 6ilent, leering to the sky. Men were falling ; H from its slanting deck into tho sea, others H clung to stays or stanchions. They made no ' H 6ignal to the battleship as, 300 yards away, : H it rushed by in tho haze of smoke which the H other destroyers sustained. Tho Arizona, ' H bent on the destruction of life, could not halt ' H to save men from the vessel which had been H protecting the battleship; the men on the dc- H stroyer knew it; one of them waved and Bob H knew that he was cheering, as the Arizona H passed ; then ho leaped into the Tea. ' H The clatter of a machine gun; the rattle jH of another, replying, sounded from the air H overhead. The turret guns of the Arizona 'H were still masked and silent; the torpedo-de- .H fense batteries on the battleship still lacked H a target; the noise of the machine gun be- H came distinct Two aeroplanes were fight- : H ing an American machine pursued by a H monoplane of the enemy and driven back over H the American ships. Bob saw the duel but H a flashing second as the aircraft swept over- H head. The smoke was disappearing; the de- H stroyer, which had been belching the pall, ap- ' H peared again or rather three of them ap H pcared where there had been four. H " Range, one, nine, O double O !" the tele- ; H phone transmitters in the turret were talking H again. The visual upon the bulkhead dis -H played the range as the sightsettcrs sprang $H to their sights. H " Commence firing !" H The Arizona had passed through the zon .'H where the enemy's submarines had waited; 'H the American observers in the aeroplanes and M on the destroyers far ahead had reported no M more submcrsiblcs iu a position of danger; JH those which had been passed could not sub- ;H merged, overtake the battleships. The Penn- ;H sylvania, with its patrol of destroyers ahead mH and on both sides, also was safe Far. far H ahead the great cruisers of the enemy np- JH peared in flight A mast was gone from one IH of the Perns, the third ship iu the line at JH which the Arizona had been firing. The gun M crew cheered as Bob reported it to them; H cheered again for the Pennsylvania as he told IH the men that the Carthage lacked a funnel. H The enemy had hern hit and wero in flight. H " Boys, thut was tb Bnlch thoy torpedted ! M Boys, for the Balch and for the Salem tho M other day ! " M The right e'un leaped back in Its recoil as M the firing pointer pressed his key. The roar M of a gun from the Pennsylvania boomed in H rivalry over the water. Both ships were M firing but one gun again to find the range be- M foro firing by salvos. M H TT- n 1..H.lHn1 I H il.A AflA Aflmn frllll H Up 11VU UUIIUICU. 11IU uiuti miui- i.v". B the elevation of the sight; and, after the sight M was corrected and the gun fired, "Up twp 1 hundred!" Up! Up! Up! The PcraB and H the Cartilage were drawing away. They had M been hit hard hit the Carthage battlo H cruiser and the rear Pera. One had lost a H funnel, a mast was down on the other. They H must have been damaged below; but they H wcic drawing away from the American pur- H suit, no matter what the engine crews of the M Arizona and the Pennsylvania could do. jl Smoke the smoke from the funnels of de- M stroyers such as had hid the American dread- H naughts from the regent's submarines was M rising in a cloud about the enemy's cruisers; VM they no longer were trying to lure the Amer- 1 lean ships out; they were not firing back; H they were trying only to gct'away. And they M were doing it although they had been hit jH hard hit two of them they wero doing it H They had lost a couple of knots speed, per- H haps; but they could spare them, and more. H " Up two hundred ! " the mockery camo M from the fire control station. " Up ! Up ! " M The guns could not be elevated any farther ; JM tho gun crews, sweating and gasping, loaded H frantically, desperately, to give the Pera one 11 more shot " for the Balch, boys!" before 1 the enemy were beyond a chance. But the H officers in tho conning tower were giving it up. M The bugles blew: H "Cease firing!" H Louden, the firing pointer, pressed hi B fingers on his koy. The gun beside him leaped H back and the air outside was riven. It was H after the buglo had blown. Louden turned H nnd faced Wendell with eyes burning. H "I beg your pardon, nirj but I was 'on' B and my brother was boatswain oL GM Balch!" H TO BE CONTJMUKD. M roopyrfsht: iWte ByThCooTtft)n. - Jh |