So Norman Sickles said, but he wasn't the man to lose his vessel or risk men's lives. The _Orion_ was holding on. She was going to force us. When Norman Sickles saw that, he motioned with his arm for the man at our wheel to keep off. But the _Sirius_ wasn't keeping off. Norman Sickles turned and yelled: "Keep her off--off--off, I say!" starting aft, at the same time, to take the wheel himself. He was too late. They seemed drawn together. We took a shoot. The _Orion_ took a shoot. "Damned if she didn't get away from him!" I remember hearing one of our fellows jerk out, but I remember also I was left wondering whether he meant our vessel or the _Orion_. They rushed together and g-g-h-h! Talk of a smash! Forty-five hundred tons of coal, nine-tenths of it below the water-line, and a breeze of wind! Either one would have sunk a battle-ship. It shook the spars out of the _Orion_. Her after-mast came down, the next one came down, the others were swaying. "The boat--the boat!" her crew yelled, but taking another look up at those wabbling masts, they waited to launch no boat. With few words but much action, they went over her side, one after the other, and began to claw out for the _Sirius_, on which--she was sinking too--our crew had a big quarter-boat ready to launch. While the two vessels were still locked in collision I had seen Drislane come running from aft and leap into the _Orion_. I lost sight of him then, because with our captain I had jumped below into our cabin, he to save his ship's papers and I to save my firm's. We were on deck in time to get into our boat, and help pick up the crew of the _Orion_ in the water. Looking for Drislane then, I saw him and Captain Oliver Sickles at each other's throats in the stern of the _Orion_. There wasn't much left of her above water then. And on her deck it was a mess of fallen spars, with her foremast the only stick left, and that--unsupported by backstays and the wind still pressing against the big sail--that was wabbling. Even as we looked it came down--lower and top parts--with a smash which snapped the topmast off and sent it twisting and gyrating to where, after a bound or two, it rolled down and pinned to the deck the two battling men in the stern. With it came a tangled mess of halyards and stays.