On a dreadnaught in the van of the convoying fleet, stood the Admiral of the armada. He was speaking with the ship’s Captain, as they paced up and down the bridge. Everywhere enormously long polished black cannon thrust their supple bodies out of turrets. Like the peering heads of serpents, the guns of the secondary batteries looked out from bow to stern. Everywhere stood officers and men at quarters. Without a moment’s pause signals ran up and down, wimpling out their gaudy messages, and everlastingly the wireless sounded its stuttering staccato. Yet there was a placid, strangely peaceful quiet over the whole gray, tall, bristling machine. Except for its appearance, it might have been a pleasure yacht. “It’s a lovely shore,” the Admiral was saying. “Some beautiful estates and charming people. I was delightfully entertained within five miles of where we shall land. It seems a rough return for hospitality. But one does for one’s country what one would not do--hello!” The dreadnaught’s circling destroyers were coming at the ship headlong. The Captain leaped to the rail. Before he got there, the ship’s port battery crashed. A signalman pointed at the water fifty yards off. Something like a staring, hooded eye had looked from the sea for a moment. It was the last thing the signalman saw on earth. The dreadnaught shuddered. While its guns were still firing, it lifted with a jerk as a man would lift if caught by an upward swing under the jaw. A great, queerly muffled explosion shook it. For perhaps a minute it tore along under the impetus of its own speed, but it did not move smoothly. It jolted, like a cart going over a rough road. Then it began to topple. Over and over it leaned, slowly, fast, faster. There was not an outcry. Short calls of command there were from officers, but not a sound from the men. It was very still now. The wireless had ceased, the engines were shut off, and there was only the roar of steam. The dreadnaught’s crew was clinging, like men clinging to a steep cliff, holding fast to everything that would give foot-hold or hand-grip on the inclined deck. A signal climbed along the toppling mast. Then, with a thunder of breaking metal, with fire-hose, ammunition cases, instruments, ship’s furniture all volleying into the sea, the ship fell full on her side and went down. _A Maneuver to Escape Undersea Attack_ In a hissing, breaking sea that instantly was gray with ashes and multi-colored with oil, swam eight hundred men. None came near them. The dreadnaught’s last signal had been the order to keep off: and the big fleet was weaving in and out at top speed, in a maneuver long since perfected, to escape other attacks from the invisible things. Far astern raved the guns again. This time the alert destroyers had not missed their aim. A periscope disappeared. Presently, slowly, little spreading disks of oil swam on the surface, and united, and more floated upward and spread.