sailors, I was to continue to enjoy this privilege; but just as soon as I gave them cause to believe that I was trying to gather information, I was to be sent down into the hell-hole aft--as the prisoners called their well-named quarters. Needless to say, I gladly agreed to his proposition, knowing myself to be lucky not to be separated from my family. At 4:30 P.M. a man (who was afterwards my orderly) came to our room with cotton batting to put in our ears, as they were going to sink the _Beluga_ by gun fire. I was granted permission to go onto the boat deck and watch. They fired nineteen shots at her with the six-inch gun forward, and the nineteenth shell hit her amidships. The other eighteen were clean misses--rotten shooting, as the target was only two and a half miles off. _Beluga_ burst into flames and immediately when she caught fire the benzine exploded, making one of the most wonderful sights I have ever seen. The sea for miles around us was covered with burning petrol, the weather was almost calm, and occasionally a "cat's-paw" of wind would come along and cause this flaming field of oil to run in various directions, opening a path of black water through a sea of flames. As soon as this "cat's-paw" of wind was over the flames would run together again. When the spars fell out of the ship the splash was not of water but a veritable cataract of flames. Even the Germans were impressed by the picture of three square miles of burning sea, flames leaping thirty feet high and raging for hours. God! It was a wonderful thing. In fact, the sight was so great that I did not realise for some minutes that it was my own little home that was going up in flames. My wife could not, of course, stand this sight, and had remained in her room.