Then the torpedo was discharged. It whizzed across the ship, drawing a tail behind it like a comet. It plunged beneath the _Ancona_ as if guided by a diabolical intelligence of its own. There followed a terrific explosion. Huge jets of thick black smoke shot up, with showers of débris. Our boat rocked and swayed in the roughened water. The _Ancona_ lurched to the left, righted herself, shivered a moment--then her bow shot high in the air like a struggling, death-stricken animal. She went under, drawing a huge, funnel-like vortex after her. The Captain and some officers were the last to drop astern, in a small boat. Passengers were still to be seen, clinging forward, like ants on driftwood, as the ship was drawn down. There were many people wounded, so that they could not get off unaided. They were left to die. The sea now looked absolutely empty, swept smooth. The ship had drawn everything down with it. The fog undulating upward, the submarine was seen lying in full view, as if in quiet Teutonic contemplation of what it had done. Then it moved off, and was soon merged into the waste of sea and fog. We felt a great relief when it had departed. IV--SURVIVORS DRIFTING ON THE OCEAN All that afternoon our six surviving boats drifted within sight of each other. When darkness fell large yellow lanterns were lit, and from time to time Bengal lights flared and fell. It looked like a regatta held on the River Styx, in Hell. The sailors had exhausted themselves rowing, so the improvised sails were set. The boat-loads of survivors had run the gamut of every emotion. They were now mere stocks of insensibility, numb, dumb, and inert. At six in the afternoon a boat just behind us began sending us signals of distress. The men had taken off their shirts and were waving them to us on oars. Our sailors objected to turning back, saying that both boats would be sunk if we tried to relieve them. But Carlo Lamberti, the chief engineer, with a quiet look in his blue eyes, with a rather careless, engaging smile, which was habitual to him all the time, presented his revolver--and we went back to see what was wrong. We found that the boat had been struck by a shell and was leaking badly. True enough, most of the people in it tried to make an immediate stampede into our boat. But again Lamberti presented his eloquent pistol and his quiet smile, and with order and precision we took aboard the wounded, the women, and children. Then the leaky craft was tied to our stern and the men left were easily able to keep it afloat by bailing. "We'll save you, or go down with you!" Lamberti reassured them. This chief engineer was the only man who showed signal bravery.