Whether that projectile reached its goal, none of us will ever be able to say. From the sudden, furious eruption of spray in the direction of the enemy craft, I am inclined to believe that this was among the U-boats later reported missing; yet, the torpedo may merely have struck some floating object and so have lost its prey. Whatever the results, we were unable to observe with certainty, for at the same moment a gleaming streak shot toward us across the dark waters, and the next instant we went sprawling about the deck as a dull thudding crash came to our ears and the vessel shook and wavered as though in an earthquake’s grip. Half dazed from the shock, we gathered ourselves together and rose uncertainly to our feet, staring at one another in dull consternation. And at the same moment one of the seamen burst wildly into the cabin, despair and terror in his maddened eyes. “The central compartment!” he cried. “The central compartment. It’s flooded, all flooded!” And as if to prove his words, we felt ourselves sinking, sinking slowly, though we had not been ordered to submerge; the darkness of the twilight skies quickly gave way to the darkness beneath the ocean. * * * * * It was some minutes before we quite realized what was happening. Accustomed as we were to undersea traveling, we did not at first understand that this was an adventure quite out of the ordinary. Even when the waters had lost their first pale translucency and had become utterly black and opaque, we did not realize our terrible predicament. Only after our vessel began listing violently, and we felt the deck sloping at an angle of forty-five degrees, did we recognize the full horror of our position. Although we could see not one inch beyond the thick glass portholes, I had an indefinable sense that we were sinking, sinking down, down, down through vague and unknown abysses; and the stark and helpless terror on the assembled faces gave proof that the others shared my feelings. Not a word did we utter. Indeed, speaking would not have been easy, for a low, continuous roaring was in our ears, a hoarse, muffled roaring reminding me of the murmuring in a sea-shell. At the same time, a strange depression overwhelmed my senses; it seemed as though the atmosphere had suddenly become thick and heavy, too heavy for breathing; it seemed as though an unnatural weight had been piled upon me, threatening to crush and stifle me. Yet I did notice that the vessel quivered violently and lunged upward every few seconds, in a furious effort to right itself and rise to the surface. I did fancy that I heard the buzzing of the engines at times, an intermittent buzzing that was most disquieting; and I found myself, like the others, hanging to the brass railings to steady myself when the ship heaved and shuddered, or to keep my footing when we slanted downward.