It was in 1891 that the steamship _Skyro_ pulled out of the port of Cartagena, in southern Spain, and set her course for London. The coast of Spain glided by as she proceeded through the blue seas of the Mediterranean, speaking Gibraltar as she passed, and setting her nose north to skirt the coast of Portugal. Oporto dropped far astern, and the Portuguese coast changed to the western coast of Spain as a fog quietly stole down and blanketed everything. The fog was dense. Not a thing could be seen, and the warning notes of the _Skyro’s_ siren blared monotonously as she felt her way blindly along. The captain and officers stared anxiously ahead, hoping that the fog would lift; but there was no sign of a break around them, nothing but fog and the sound of their siren to warn passing ships. Of a sudden the ship staggered and halted. It was as though a giant hand had reached up from the depths of the sea and grasped her keel. The crew were thrown higgledy-piggledy. There was an awful rending sound as the _Skyro_ swung onward. She had struck the dreaded Mexiddo reef off Cape Finisterre, and as she slid over the cruel rocks they literally tore the bottom out of her. Slowly she carried on, while that rending sound continued, and twenty minutes after striking she slipped off the reef and plunged to the bottom. A few hours later the bell of the _Lutine_ in the Royal Exchange was clanging loudly. The underwriters paused in their work. All voices were stilled, and the scarlet-coated crier, mounting his rostrum, announced in stentorian voice that the steamship _Skyro_ had struck the Mexiddo reef off Cape Finisterre and was a total loss. Then the bustle of business began again, but a little knot of underwriters gathered together and started to talk quietly. They were interested in the silver bars that the _Skyro_ carried. “What about salvage?” one inquired. Another, who joined the group, shook his head. “Hopeless. She’s down in 25 fathoms, or more.” “You never know,” said one man who was more intimately concerned. He was quite right. You never know. Men manage sometimes to achieve the impossible. Fuller information made the salvage seem more remote than ever, for instead of being down in 25 fathoms, as had been supposed, she was several fathoms deeper, and her keel, resting on the bottom, must have been well over 30 fathoms from the surface. Nothing had ever been salved from such a depth before, and it seemed unlikely that any man could go to this depth and survive the enormous pressure.