“More answered than the boats could accommodate, and when it came time for action the _Olympic’s_ crew actually fought to get into the boats, so eager were they to do something for their country and for the sailors on the doomed _Audacious_. When one of the boats hit the water they found in it a little bell boy, eleven years old, who carried messages to and from the purser’s office. “Although the starboard lifeboats were manned, Captain Haddock suddenly changed his plan. “Instead of dropping down on the port side of the pounding warrior, he decided to put about and approach on the starboard side. By so doing he made a lee, which enabled the fourteen lifeboats dropped from the port side to accomplish a task that never could have been done if the original plan had been put into effect. “The seas were high, and the men in the _Olympic’s_ lifeboats had a hard pull. It took them twenty minutes to get over to the _Audacious_, which lay about five hundred yards away. We could see the crew at quarters. They were the calmest body of men I ever have seen. The discipline was perfect. Through the binoculars the captain of the _Audacious_ was seen walking up and down the deck calmly, with his hands behind his back. The rescue work proceeded rapidly, and there was but one fatality. “The _Olympic_ dropped anchor off Lough Swilly at eight p. m. An hour later a tremendous flash lighted up the entire ship. We rushed to the deck and could see, for fully twenty seconds afterward, burning fragments shooting upward from the place where the _Audacious_ had been. Then there came a roar. It sounded, they said, as if some mammoth boiler were letting off steam. It stopped as suddenly as it came. That was the end of the _Audacious_. “As a reason for destroying the _Audacious_ it was said that the battleship was hopelessly damaged, and that if not blown up it would become a menace to navigation.” Seek Brave Man to Ring Haunted Bell. At midnight Christmas Eve the ringing tones of “Big Sam,” the haunted bell, as it is called at Richmond, Va., will be heard for the first time from the tower of the new armory. Chief W. H. Thompson, of the fire-and-police-signal system, makes this announcement, but he does so with a hesitancy that frequently brings this question: “Are you sure?” “As reasonably sure as any one may be about anything in connection with the haunted bell,” said Chief Thompson, still with an air of mystery and as if evading a direct reply. “That bell has been silent almost from the time it was brought to this city twenty-three years ago, and they say it is haunted.” “So I’ve heard,” ventured the scribe, “but what about it?” “It has had a baleful influence upon everything connected with it. All who had a hand in bringing it here are dead.” “Good gracious! What more?”