"Well, the flagship is at the bottom of the German Ocean. When Petroff told me that you had fallen dead, as he said, on deck, I ran up in defiance of your orders and saw the battleship just going down. The shells had blown the middle of her right out, and a cloud of steam and smoke and fire was rising out of a great ragged space where the funnels had been. Before I got you down here she broke right in two and went down." "That serves that blackguard Prabylov right for saying we forged the Tsar's letter, and firing on a flag of truce. Poor Volnow's dead, I suppose?" "Oh yes," replied Radna sadly. "He was shot almost to pieces by the volley from the machine gun. The deck saloon is riddled with bullets, and the decks badly torn up, but fortunately the hull and propellers are almost uninjured. But come, drink this, then you can go up and see for yourself." So saying she handed him a tumbler of champagne well dashed with brandy. He drank it down at a gulp, like the Russian that he was, and said as he put the glass down-- "That's better. I feel a new man. Now give me a kiss, _batiushka_, and I'll be off." When he reached the deck he found the _Ariel_ ascending towards the _Ithuriel_, and about a mile astern of the Russian fleet, the vessels of which were blazing away into the air with their machine guns, in the hope of "bringing him down on the wing," as he afterwards put it. He could hear the bullets singing along underneath him; but the _Ariel_ was rising so fast, and going at such a speed through the air, that the moment the Russians got the range they lost it again, and so merely wasted their ammunition. Neither the _Ithuriel_ nor the _Orion_ seemed to have taken any part in the battle so far, or to have done anything to avenge the attack made upon the _Ariel_. Mazanoff wondered not a little at this, as both Arnold and Tremayne must have seen the fate of the Russian flagship. As soon as he got within speaking distance of the _Ithuriel_, he sang out to Arnold, who was on the deck-- "I got in rather a tight place down there. That scoundrel fired upon us with the flag of truce flying, and when I gave him a couple of shells in return I thought the end of the world was come." "You fired at too close range, my friend. Those shells are sudden death to anything within a hundred yards of them. Are you all well on board? You've been knocked about a bit, I see." "No; poor Volnow's dead. He was killed standing close beside me, and I wasn't touched, though the explosion of the shell knocked the senses out of me completely. However, the machinery's all right, and I don't think the hull is hurt to speak of. But what are you doing? I should have thought you'd have blown half the fleet out of the water by this time." "No. We saw that you had amply avenged yourself, and the Master's orders were not to do anything till you returned. You'd better come on board and consult with him."