The guns began to speak, and the shells shrieked over the stern of the sinking steamship, exploding somewhere in the smoke cloud. There followed no shots in reply. The Germans were shy. The thickening smoke shut out again all sight of the _Sea Pigeon_. The condition of the _Susanne_ was threatening. Commander Lang dared not consider a pursuit of the German raider when lives were in such peril here. Two boats were all that had been put out from the sugar ship. Her other small craft were smashed by the shellfire of the raider. Some forty or more people were gathered in the bows of the _Susanne_, and they must needs be taken off quickly. The big merchant vessel was surely going down. Her two boats had already pulled away to a safe distance. Commander Lang would not risk his own small craft near the trembling hull of the _Susanne_, but swerved the course of the destroyer that she might run in under the high bows of the ill-fated ship. Signals were passed, and the remaining members of the _Susanne’s_ crew hastened to prepare slings in which to lower the passengers to the destroyer’s deck. “Volunteers to go up there and help those people! Smart, now!” sang out the executive officer of the _Colodia_ through his trumpet. Ikey Rosenmeyer and Frenchy Donahue, who were both free, leaped forward at the call. With Seven Knott and two other sailors, they swarmed up to the high bows of the imperiled ship. The two Seacove boys were well trained in the uses of cordage and in knotting and splicing. They seized a coil of rope and, working together swiftly, safely lowered three women and a wounded man over the rail to the destroyer’s deck before they were piped down from the _Susanne_. Even the dead body of the murdered purser was sent aboard the _Colodia_. The flames were by that time surging upward, and it was almost too hot to stand upon her forward decks. The bows of the ship were being thrust up as her stern sank. At any minute the wreck might plunge beneath the sea. “Back all!” rose a stentorian voice from the destroyer. Ikey and Frenchy went over the rail and swarmed down their respective lines. They were guided inboard to the firm deck of the destroyer. The other workers followed. The _Colodia_ backed swiftly away. Nor was this done a minute too soon. The wreck was already wallowing from side to side like some wounded monster of the sea. The air pressure blew up the forward deck. Had the survivors remained longer they would have been overwhelmed! A roaring like that of a great exhaust pipe came from the interior of the sugar ship. The sea began to seethe in a whirlpool about her. She stood almost upright on her stern as she sank. Down, down she went, while the destroyer turned tail and scudded away at top speed. To be caught in that whirlpool would have spelled disaster for even as staunch a craft as the _Colodia_ undoubtedly was.