The shining messenger of death leapt from the port tube and, as it did so, a shell struck the destroyer amidships. There was a loud explosion; from the engine-room gratings there issued clouds of smoke and scalding steam; the shrieks of wounded and scalded men arose above the din, and the _Knat_, struck in a vital spot, canted over on her port side and began to settle. She, at any rate, had fought her last fight. "Pipe all hands stand by to abandon ship!" roared the Lieutenant, and somewhere amid the drifting grey fog there came the sound of another explosion. The destroyer gave another lurch and the water came swirling over her decks. "Abandon ship! Every man for himself!" The men sprang into the sea, and not a moment too soon. As Lawless gave his last order there came the sound of another explosion in the engine-room and, before the steam from the shattered boilers had cleared away, nothing remained of the gallant little vessel but a mass of crumpled metal at the bottom of the North Sea and some wreckage floating upon the surface. Lawless, who was still at the wheel when the _Knat_ took her final plunge, was drawn down by the suction of the sinking vessel. Instinctively he struck out as soon as the waves closed above his head, but it seemed to him that he must be miles and miles below the surface. A horrible feeling of impending suffocation and an almost intolerable pressure on his lungs oppressed him as he struck upwards. At last, when his chest felt as if it were about to burst, he reached the surface and trod water while he sucked in deep breaths of air. Then, through the thin veil of mist, he caught sight of what looked like the hull of a vessel or, at any rate, something solid and capable of affording support. He started to swim towards it, hoping it might be some ship which had arrived on the scene since the fight, and not caring much whether it proved to be a friend or an enemy. In a few minutes he was alongside, and had caught hold of some tackle hanging from a spar. Hauling himself up, he managed to get astride the spar, and then realised that the vessel had a heavy list to port. Too dazed to draw any significant deductions from this, he worked his way along the spar till he found himself looking down upon a slanting deck, littered with wreckage and apparently deserted. Then, and not till then, he realised where he was. He had unwittingly climbed aboard the German cruiser, which was sinking and had been abandoned by her crew. Obviously, therefore, his last torpedo had found its billet, and the cruiser had been hit at the moment when victory seemed hers--it was a great consolation. The Lieutenant's first thought was to dive back into the sea, and he was about to do this when a noise above his head made him look up. A Zeppelin, no doubt the same one which had been piloting the cruiser, was hovering above, evidently with the object of ascertaining what had happened to the combatants.