"Is she fitted with wireless?" yelled Dastral. "Yes," answered the observer, putting down his glasses into the socket for an instant. "Then give her a message on the international code. It's her last chance. She'll be on the infernal things in another two minutes." "Right-o! Here goes!" and, uncoiling the long aerial wire, he tapped out just one word on the sending key:-- "M I N E S!!!" "Good. If that fails, the ship's done for!" ejaculated Fisker, as he watched eagerly for the ship to change her course. On came the vessel, quite oblivious of the danger. She was less than a cable's length from the string of mines, and still steaming fast, when Dastral noted some movement about the deck, where a dozen or so of the crew stood just for'ard of the bridge, in the waist, gazing intently at the 'plane. "Heavens! It's too late!" gasped the pilot, as he saw the steamer's bows running dead on towards the very centre of the floating mines. "No, she may just do it," he ventured to his observer, as he saw the sudden commotion on board. Suddenly, out of the wireless room, the operator, evidently carrying the message, dashed up the companion way to the bridge, flourishing a piece of paper in his hand, and shouted:-- "Mines in the vicinity, sir!" Then it was that the captain realised the danger he was in, for the mine-sweeper coming up on the starboard bow was also flying the signal for her to heave to. Dashing to the wheelhouse door, a few paces away from where he had been standing, the captain shouted to the man at the helm, "Hard-a-starboard!" And though the tide was with her, the good ship swung round smartly, only in the very nick of time, for, as she turned, one of the deadly mines was within two feet of her stern, and the wash from her screw and the rapid movement of her rudder as she came round, caused the nearest mine to come into contact with a piece of wreckage, at which there was a terrific roar, and a huge column of water was lifted up and hurled some two hundred feet into the air. Then followed a more terrible spectacle, for one after another the whole string of mines went off, as though they had been countermined. It was just as if there had been a sub-aqueous earthquake, for a prolonged roar of thunder, earsplitting and nerve-racking, immediately followed, while the sea for hundreds of yards around rose up like a huge waterspout, and for some minutes the whole surface of the water, hitherto placid, broke into tumultuous waves. The tramp steamer received fifty tons of water upon her decks, but save for a slight starting of the plates in her stern, she was untouched. Nevertheless, she had to keep the pumps constantly in use for the remainder of her voyage.