"Lord, if I could only bring that thing down," reflected Lawless, forgetting his own peril for the moment. His eye wandered over the deserted decks, and then he gave a sudden whoop of joy. Not twenty yards from where he stood were a couple of anti-aircraft guns, and, without stopping to weigh the consequences, he crossed to one of them, found it was loaded, and at once trained the muzzle on the ponderous mass hovering overhead. Then he fired. A shell went whistling up, and passing through or over the gondola--he could not be sure which--exploded immediately beneath the gas envelope. There was a flash of flame and the sound of an explosion, but before the smoke had cleared away Lawless had trained the second gun on the airship and fired again. Then, without waiting to ascertain the result of his shots, he took a header into the sea and, on reaching the surface, swam as hard as he could towards a piece of floating wreckage. He threw an arm over this and, thus supported, turned round to see what was happening. The sight which met his astonished gaze was tragic and terrible in the extreme. Piled upon the tilting side of the German cruiser was a great flaming mass sending up a cloud of smoke and sparks--all that remained of the great airship. Only for a second or two was Lawless able to gaze at this fearful spectacle of calamity heaped upon calamity to which sea and air had each contributed a quota, for, with a quivering lurch, the cruiser rolled completely over and disappeared beneath the waters, dragging the burning remains of the Zeppelin with it. "Congratulations! You'll be able to stand me a dinner at the Savoy now." Lawless turned his head and saw Trent a few yards away clinging to an empty water beaker and looking quite abnormally cheerful. But the Lieutenant was still oppressed by the tragedy he had witnessed, and the junior's flippant remark jarred upon him. "Shut up," he growled. "Oh, all right," answered Trent, in an injured tone; "but I should have thought that the prospect of handling that thousand quid would have made you more amiable." As a matter of fact it had not occurred to Lawless until that moment that he had won his uncle's wager and was, therefore, entitled to the thousand pounds. But now, strange to say, he did not feel elated in the least degree; the triple tragedy in which the _Knat_, the German cruiser and the Zeppelin had been involved, together with, probably, the loss of several hundred men, dwarfed everything else for the time being. "How many of our men have gone under do you think?" he asked. "Can't say, though I'm afraid we've lost between twenty and thirty. But that's nothing compared with the enemy's losses."