"It was plain enough if anyone was still livin' they was goin' to need pickin' up in a hurry, an' the captain put the _Firebran'_ at full speed to close her an' stan' by to give a han'. Just then I saw a Hun searchlight turned on and start feelin' its way up to where the _Killarney_ was burning, wi' a cru'ser followin' up the small end o' the beam, seemin' to be nosin' in to end the mis'ry. She did not bear right for a mouldie, but we opened up wi' the foremost gun, an' I saw the shells bustin' on her bridge and fo'c'sl' like rotten apples chucked 'against a wall. The light blinked off as the first proj hit home, but there was no way to tell if it was shot away or no. It was the second time that night that we'd done our bit to ease off the hell turned loose on the _Killarney_. Likewise it was the last. From then on we had our own partic'lar hell to wriggle out of, wi' no time left to play 'Venging Nemisus' to our stricken sisters. Just a big bonfire sittin' on the sea an' lickin' a hole in the night wi' its flames--that was the last I saw of the ol' _Killarney_." Melton paused for a moment as if engrossed in the memories conjured up by his narrative, and I took advantage of the interval to hand him one of those most loved lollipops of Yankee youngster-hood, a plump, hard ball of toothsome saccharinity called--obviously from its resistant resiliency--an "All-Day Sucker." When he spoke again I knew in an instant that a sure instinct had led him to make the proper disposition of the succulent dainty--that it was stowed snugly away in a bulging cheek like a squirrel's nut, to melt away in its own good time. "'Tween the glare of the burnin' _Killarney_," Melton went on after thrashing his hands across his shoulders for a minute to warm them up, "the gleam o' the Hun cru'ser's searchlight an' the flash o' our own gun-fire, we must all have been more or less blinded in the _Firebrand_, for we had run close to what may have been a part of the main en'my battl' line wi'out nothin' bein' reported. Our firin' had give us away, o' course, an' the nearest ships must have had their guns trained on us, waitin' to be sure what we was. One o' 'em must have made up his mind we was en'my even before we spotted 'em at all, for the first thing I saw was the white o' the bow wave an' wake as she turned toward us, prob'ly to ram. She'd have caught us just about midships if the bridge hadn't sighted her an' done the only thing open to do--turned to meet her head on.