They have been steaming for twenty-four hours and are now very near the enemy's guns guarding the entrance to the bay. The very audacity of the Italians seems to save them, for they steam on unchallenged, and when near enough, discharge a torpedo at the giant Austrian dreadnought. The ship is struck and all is excitement and confusion. Rockets are sent up to alarm and inform the forts. The Italian torpedo boats turn for home. D'Annunzio says, "The sky is starry, the sea is starry, and our hearts are starry, too." One of their three ships is soon disabled and falls behind. The other two turn back to help her, and this is what probably saves them all; for the Austrian forts, seeing them sailing into the harbor, think they are Austrian vessels and do not fire upon them. When they steam out of the harbor, the forts think they are Austrian torpedo boats in pursuit of the Italians who must have escaped in the darkness. As D'Annunzio says, "Our very audacity has conquered Fate." They sank one of the largest of the Austrian dreadnoughts, and then returned in safety to Italy. It remained, however, for another Italian naval officer to outdo those who "dared the undarable" at Buccari. Lieutenant Luigi Rizzo, with two small motor patrol boats, succeeded in sinking two huge dreadnoughts protected by an escort of fast destroyers. His story of the encounter is as follows: We were returning to our base just before dawn on July 10, 1918, after a night of dull, monotonous work along the enemy's coast, when I saw smoke coming from ships nearly two miles away. I thought we had been discovered and were being pursued. The only way I could know what we had to contend with was to get nearer the enemy, so I turned the two boats in my command toward the distant smoke. Soon I discovered that it was two of Austria's largest dreadnoughts protected by a great convoy of destroyers. Evidently because we were so small, we had not been seen in the darkness; and although we were poorly armed, with only two large torpedoes for each of our two boats and eight smaller ones to throw by hand, we crept ahead until we were inside the line of the destroyers, and slowly and quietly approaching the dreadnoughts. I headed for one of them which proved to be the _St. Stephen_, and Lieutenant Aonzo, in charge of the other boat, made for the other, the _Prince Eugene_. Then the watch on the dreadnoughts discovered us and began to fire at us with their small guns. How we escaped destruction is a miracle. Lieutenant Aonzo sent his first torpedo, and missed; but the second struck the giant fairly. Both of my torpedoes struck the _St. Stephen_.