"Nothing left of the steering gear," shuddered Felton. "Wonder how many were killed in that--and the other." A six-inch gun on the superstructure was barking away, and shells still screamed upward, but none came near the airship. "We'll silence that gun," the commander said, taking out his watch and slightly changing the course and speed. "Stand by." They poised another shell, and at the word "drop" down it went. The commander pocketed his watch, and said: "Now for the rest of her; after turret next." Felton heard, but was watching the descent of the shell. It went out of sight like the others, but soon he saw the uplift of deck, the yellow smoke of explosion, and a dismounted gun flying overboard. "My God, captain!" he exclaimed. "Is this legitimate warfare? What chance has she? She can't hit back. That was the only gun she had with elevated trunnions." "And she cost about four millions, didn't she?" answered the captain, derisively. "Did you ever hear about the boy who was reproved for clubbing a mule tied to a post? His excuse was that it had no darn business to be a mule. Mine is that you've no darn business to build battleships." "Well, we may build airships, too," said Felton, helplessly. He said no more, but watched, while his ship was picked to pieces. The after turret went next, its big guns lifting and falling across each other. It took two shells to do this, though the second may have had aid from the magazine beneath; for the whole turret rose with the explosion. Then the eight-inch turrets, one after the other, shattered to shapeless lumps under that terrible dropping bombardment; then the superstructure, with its inclosed armament of six-inch and smaller guns, received the fire; and when the whole expanse was an uneven tangle of riven plates, twisted rods, smashed boats, and uprooted ventilators, the funnels came in for attention. Three open, ten-foot tubes leading to the vitals, water-tube boilers and steam connections, one after another belched upward a mighty white cloud, and after each uprush of steam the dropping of bombs ceased until the steam had thinned; for in this deadly, leisurely destruction of a battleship, no bombs need be wasted. There was still the gaping hole where once had been the forward turret, and the commander seemed to be studying this, as Felton, sick at heart and furious with impotent rage, lifted his gaze from the wreck, which, rolling slowly from filled compartments, smoking with inward flame, and covered with crawling dots seeking escape from the inferno beneath, had lately been his refuge and his home--the invincible, impregnable _Argyll_--queen among battleships. "I say, there," called the captain to Felton. "What blew up that forward turret? No gun fire can reach a magazine, and it wasn't I that did it." "How do I know? Perhaps it was something else like you," snapped Felton.