“Sir, I have to inform you that the ship has been blown up, and is sinking.” “Follow me,” the captain replied, acknowledging his subordinate’s salute, and the two pressed forward through the blackness and suffocating vapour. Lieutenant Blandin, officer of the deck, was sitting on the starboard side of the quarter-deck when the terrible upheaval began, and was knocked down by a piece of cement hurled from the lowermost portion of the ship’s frame, perhaps; but, leaping quickly to his feet, he ran to the poop that he might be at his proper station when the supreme moment came. Lieut. Friend W. Jenkins was in the junior officers’ mess-room when the first of a battle-ship’s death-throes was felt, and as soon as possible made his way toward the deck, encouraging some of the bewildered marines to make a brave fight for life; but he never joined his comrades. Assistant Engineer Darwin R. Merritt and Naval Cadet Boyd together ran toward the hatch, but only to find the ladder gone. Boyd climbed through, and then did his best to aid Merritt; but his efforts were vain, and the engineer went down with his ship. It seemed as if only the merest fraction of time elapsed before the uninjured survivors were gathered on the poop-deck. Forward of them, where a moment previous had been the main-deck, was a huge mass looming up in the darkness like some threatening promontory. On the starboard quarter hung the gig, and opposite her, on the port side, was the barge. During the first two or three seconds only muffled, gurgling, choking exclamations were heard indistinctly; and then, when the terrible vibrations of the air ceased, cries for help went up from every quarter. Lieutenant Blandin says, in describing those few but terrible moments: “Captain Sigsbee ordered that the gig and the launch be lowered, and the officers and men, who by this time had assembled, got the boats out and rescued a number in the water. “Captain Sigsbee ordered Lieut.-Commander Wainwright forward to see the extent of the damage, and if anything could be done to rescue those forward, or to extinguish the flames which followed close upon the explosion and burned fiercely as long as there were any combustibles above water to feed them. “Lieut.-Commander Wainwright on his return reported the total and awful character of the calamity, and Captain Sigsbee gave the last sad order, ‘Abandon ship,’ to men overwhelmed with grief indeed, but calm and apparently unexcited.” The quiet, yet at the same time sharp, words of command from the captain aroused his officers from the stupefaction of horror which had begun to creep over them, and this handful of men, who even then were standing face to face with death, set about aiding their less fortunate companions. As soon as they could be manned, boats put off from the vessels in the harbour, and the work of rescue was continued until all the torn and mangled bodies in which life yet remained had been taken from the water.