“Good,” I said, “then I’ll unpack my cameras again and take a picture of the explosion.” At this moment the _San Marco_ gave a signal of three short blasts. I looked toward the Italian coast and saw two men-of-war loom up in the fog; then two more. Two had four funnels each and were cruisers; the other two were torpedo-boat destroyers. “Enemy in sight.” “Clear the ship.” “Jump aboard.” “Cut the barge adrift,” came in sharp commands from Captain K——. Six men at the windlass were lowering a mine carefully onto the deck of the barge. They let it drop so suddenly that the men guiding it jumped aside in terror. All hands jumped from the barge aboard our steamer. The ropes holding the barge alongside were cut, the bells clanged in the engine-room, and we shot ahead. Fog had momentarily blotted the vessels out again and gave a false sense of security. “Make the towing hawser fast; we’ll tow her,” shouted K——. Three men tried to belay the hawser, but we had too much headway on already, and the rope tore through their fingers. “Throw the bomb into her.” The bomb flew across, but fell short; then I saw a flash of lightning in the fog, and the next moment a huge fountain of water rose on our starboard side, and the shell flew screaming past us. Boom! boom! boom! Now all four ships gave us their broadsides and the stricken sea spouted geysers all around us and the _San Marco_. Screaming shells and roaring guns filled the fog. “Twelve hundred meters,” quoth K——. “They should soon get the range.” I looked at our little Hotchkiss on the fore deck—there was no use to reply even. The _San Marco_ had described a half-circle and came running up astern of us as if, like a good comrade, she was going to share our fate with us. As she came abreast of our Barge K—— shouted, “Drop a bomb into her.” “I have only one ready for my own ship,” the captain yelled back. “They will get our whole day’s work,” growled K——. “Hurray!” we all shouted the next minute, as a shell struck the barge full center, exploding the six mines and shattering it in bits, enveloping all in a dense cloud of black smoke. At this moment the other launch came alongside and raced along with us. I threw my cameras into it, and jumped aboard; then we sheared off again, so as not to give the enemy too big a target. Next minute three shells shrieked so close to our ears that we threw ourselves flat in the bottom of the launch and one shaved the deck of No. 10. There seemed to be no escape. The Italians cut us off from Trieste, and we headed for Miramar. They did not come nearer; but the Lord knows they were near enough, and by rights they should have sent us to the bottom the first three shots. Even had they steamed directly up to us, they could have got us by the scruff of the neck in five minutes, for we could make only ten knots to their twenty-five.