Oh, how quiet it was below! Not a word was uttered. No anxious conjectures, no surmises, and no questions. A deep, irresistible grief clutched my heart. My poor little boat! My poor crew! There every man unflinchingly and unhesitatingly did his duty, and devotedly put his faith in me. They were all heroes, so young and still so brave and able. And I, the commander, had brought them into the very mouth of death, and to me, the only one who could see our desperate situation, it seemed as if the scale of death slowly weighed against us, because the destroyer, with horrible certainty, was approaching. His sharp prow pointed directly towards us. Soon he would discover the projecting parts of our tower and prow, which the breakers treacherously washed over, and then we would be lost. Soon a hail of shells would sweep over us, and the greedy, foaming sea would roaringly hurl itself through the open holes in our sides. The filling of the ballast tanks had the desired effect. The boat lay down heavily on the reef and spurred the wild waves to greater efforts, and, though we did not rise any farther, the jolting increased in violence because of its added weight. It was a wonder that the boat did not go to pieces like an egg shell, and we all looked at one another in surprise when, after a terrific jolt, nothing more occurred than the bursting of a few electric bulbs. “First-class material,” I thought to myself. The mate who, over my shoulder, was keeping watch on the destroyer through the window on the port side, suddenly said, in his hearty, Saxon dialect: “Well, well! Where does he intend to look for us now, I wonder? At any rate, he doesn’t think that we are stuck here among the breakers.” “Mate, you old optimist. Those words I’ll never forget. Great God! If you are right! Then certainly——” “He is already turning,” the little chap cut me short, and jammed his nose against the window-glass, so as to be able to see better. I grabbed him by the neck and pulled him away, as my blood rushed to my head. “What? What is it you are saying? Is he turning—good God in heaven—yes, it’s true—he really _is_ turning, all the time turning—now his broadside swings round towards us, now his stern—he has turned—he is departing. He has not seen us, he has not seen us!” I remember that once, when I was a little boy, I got a roe-deer as a present.