“Hartmann, by all that’s holy!” Vindictively I bethought me of the letter, and the miserable reports of failure which Norris and his men must have delivered. “I should say he is the captain or some other boss in authority, for, see, a gunner comes up and salutes him. Ha, he must be angry! He dismisses the man fiercely, and seems once more to devour the letter.” “Go on, go on!” “He steps to the railing and shakes his fist at the City below. Now he seems to be deliberating, for he remains perfectly still, looking every now and then at the letter or document. How beside himself with anger he seems! He dashes his fist on the railing, now he strides across the deck and stalks through the surprised gunners to the citadel. I feel sure something terrible is brewing.” Ha, captain of the _Attila_! Smart under the lash of Nemesis! Matricide and murderer, writhe! You felt not for the thousands sacrificed for a theory; feel now for the report of your plans wrecked beyond hope of repair. Feel, too, for a loved mother, the sole creature you ever cared for, but whom your reckless and futile savagery has immolated! Hater of your race, terrible indeed has been your penalty! “Hallo! he comes up again with a revolver in each hand. He closes the gate of the outer wall of the citadel, and seems to harangue the crew. Is he mad or what? He fires one of the revolvers, and a man drops. A mutiny! a mutiny! I see the men rushing up like fanatics. They climb the wall, he shooting the while. Ha! he rushes into the citadel, and closes the inner door sharply. They try to follow him, but cannot!” After a long pause—“Stay, they have broken the door open, and rush——” [Illustration: A FLASH THAT BEGGARED THE LEVIN BOLT.] A flash that beggared the levin bolt, a crash shattering the window-panes and deadening the ear, a shock hurling us both on our backs, broke the utterance. Then thundered down a shower of massive fragments, fragments of the vast ship whose decks I had once trodden. Hartmann, dismayed with the failure of his plans and rendered desperate by the letter, had blown up the _Attila_! The news of his failure and the message of a dying woman had done what human hatred was too impotent even to hope for. * * * * *