We were coming to the end of the second run now, and the First Lieutenant had just said as he wiped his forehead: "They can’t stand much more of this if we’re making anything like decent shooting," when they commenced cheering on deck, and somebody shouted down that the forts had hoisted a white flag. The men below cheered from one end of the passages to the other, and the guns above ceased firing. Dr. Fox and a sick-berth steward climbed up a hoist to look after some more wounded on deck, and in a few minutes the main engines began to slow down and presently stopped altogether. On deck we heard the bos’n’s mate pipe, "Away, second cutter!" a voice yelled down the hoist, "Any second cutters down below there?" A couple of men belonging to that boat scrambled hastily up, there was silence again, and we could do nothing but wait and wonder what was happening. "If we sit here much longer I’m blowed if we sha’n’t miss our first dog-watch," said one of the stokers cheerfully, and unbending his cramped legs. "’Tis a hill wind that don’t blow nobody no good," added the other reflectively, and they both spat into a dark corner behind the fire-hose. "Put those two men in the Commander’s report," said the First Lieutenant, who had just come over from the opposite side and saw them spit. Daisy, his midshipman, got out his pocket-book and took their names. "What about yer hill wind now?" said the first one who had spoken, as Daisy went away, and they sat down again. "That will blooming well stop yer chawnce of going ashore and picking up a bit o’ loot." Old Mellins scrambled down to see me, and jolly glad I was. He is such a thoughtful chap, and had brought me some grub—a pot of pâté de foie gras and some bread and butter. Till I saw it I never realized how terribly hungry I was; and you should have seen me eating it, with Mellins standing over me, spreading great chunks of the pâté on thick slices of bread and butter, and telling me all that had happened. "Our first run past those forts simply knocked the stuffing out of them. You couldn’t see them for dust and the smoke of the shells, and when we turned round and went for them again they hardly fired a gun. We could see them tumbling over each other in their hurry to scramble out of the forts, and after we’d ceased firing someone hauled down their colours and hoisted a white flag as big as a sheet. It was simply ripping." "How about the Commander?" I asked. "He’s going strong, and firing that big gun into the harbour every four or five minutes. ’No. 2’ and ’No. 3’ are right in under the forts, and Toddles has taken the Captain inshore to take possession of them, or what is left of them." "Anybody killed?" I asked. "We have one, poor Joe Connolly, the coxswain of my picket-boat," said Mellins sadly, "and the _Strong Arm_ has three killed and nearly twenty pretty badly wounded. A 6-inch shell burst on her upper deck—in the battery."