He gave the alarm. The apathetic officers and seamen did nothing, for it would have been useless to attempt to ward off the blow; but in sheer panic they rushed to the side farthest from the approach of danger. Both torpedoes struck almost simultaneously and within thirty feet of each other. The cruiser reeled as a double column of water was hurled into the air to a height of nearly two hundred feet. Almost before the artificial waterspout had subsided the ship was settling rapidly by the stern. Even then Huxtable made no attempt to dive. He was content to keep the periscope above the level of the sea and to watch the disappearance of the stricken vessel. Not a shot was fired from the cruiser. The whole energies of officers and crew were diverted towards their own safety. Panic prevailed, for in their mad rush to launch the remaining boats men fought each other, their shouts of anger and shrieks of despair outvying the hiss of the escaping air from the confined spaces of the sinking ship. Others, without being given orders, leapt overboard and swam for the shore, till the intervening stretch of water was dotted with the heads of the terrified swimmers. "What a contrast to the sinking of the _Ocean_!" thought Dick. "Here they are in fairly shallow water and within easy distance from land, and yet they must fight each other like brutes." "Destroyers and patrol-boats approaching, sir," reported Devereux, who was still sweeping the limited expanse of view through the after-periscope. "Very good," replied the Lieutenant-Commander. Then turning to Dick he added: "I'm jolly glad. We'll have a run for our money, for, hang it! though war is war, one cannot help feeling just a little sorry to have to sneak up and torpedo an unsuspecting craft." "She would have sent us to the bottom without the faintest compunction if she had had the ghost of a chance, sir," replied Dick. "I don't think we need have anything upon our consciences." "Well, we'll have to be moving," remarked Huxtable, who was taking a leisurely survey of his surroundings. The cruiser had now sunk. Only the tops of her funnels and her masts were visible. She had been lying at anchor in a fairly broad and widening channel, the shores of which on both sides were dotted with picturesque kiosks, half hidden in clusters of cypress and olive trees. Beyond the visible relics of the torpedoed ship and the still distant Turkish patrol-craft, there was nothing to denote the presence of war conditions. "By Jove!" exclaimed Huxtable. "We're miles up the Golden Horn. Those are the houses of Pera we can see in the distance. That paddle-steamer must have piloted us through the bridge of boats between the capital and Galata. Crosthwaite, my boy, we've beaten all records--and we've got to get back."