“At least, Larry,” said I, “we will take another look at her if you please. Miss Joan is sleeping, I imagine. She will know nothing of this, and the men are not to suppose that I am unmindful of what I owe to them. Let us learn, if we can, what is happening over yonder—then we shall turn homewards with lighter hearts. Even our miserly Benson will not tell me that we have not coal enough for such a diversion.” He had no reasonable objection to offer to this—and, to be plain, our very course must carry us in some such direction. We had stood by the ship all night, and she lay now upon our port-bow, distant, perhaps, two miles from us on a spirited sea which tumbled before a fresh westerly wind that would be half a gale presently. As we drew nearer, the pictures, which a good telescope had revealed to me, were not belied. I could now make out a few hands at the fo’castle hatch; there was a solitary figure by the taffrail, and two or three more about the main deck. Nowhere, however, did any evidences of activity appear. Had I not seen the afflicted with my own eyes, dressed their wounds and heard their woful complaints, it would have been impossible to credit the burden of human anguish which that vast derelict must carry. That such a ship could now do us any mischief seemed beyond all belief incredible. None the less, the fact must be recorded that we were still some half a mile from her when she fired a gun at us, and a shell fell idly into the sea not a hundred yards from our foremast. Nor was this all, for a second report immediately rang out from her decks, and a great flame of fire leapt up above them, though no shell followed after, nor could the quickest eye detect the path of any shot. “Larry,” I said, “that is what I have been expecting all along. The breach of one of their guns is blown out. I wonder how many lives it has cost?” “But you are not going on board to see, sir?” “Indeed, no. Their shot has answered all my questions. It is homeward bound now, Larry—full speed ahead as soon as you will—and God help any innocent man if there be such over yonder.” His rejoinder was the bell ringing out loudly in our engine-room below. To the quartermaster he cried in a captain’s sharp voice: “One point starboard,” and was answered, “One point starboard it is.” I perceived that we had altered our course almost imperceptibly, and were now steering almost direct to the north-east, which must bring us to the islands of the Azores, and the coal we needed so sorely. If there were any regrets, one man alone suffered them and remained silent. It had been so much my own emprise from the beginning; I had hoped so much, dared so much, feared so much, because of it, that this silent flight from the scene, this abandonment of the quest, this abject submission to our necessity could be accounted no less than a personal humiliation which must remain with me whatever the subsequent achievement.