Tim did not mention how he had joined what little voice he possessed with that of Bonsecours, pleading with her to make no such sacrifice; and then, finding this useless, threatening to kill the great surgeon if he so much as scratched her arm. "Thot's the way people fight an' live out there, lad. Mind ye, the blessed nurse hadn't known 'im more'n a week--maybe less; but it don't take long for men or women to see the kind av stuff as is in each ither, whin they're totterin' on the edge av No Man's Land! Annyway, I don't know as she iver give 'im the answer he wanted; but w'ot's more to the p'int av me story is this; thot she's nothin' but a blessed gir-rl, from a little town back home, mind ye, but I'd have ye know thot the gr-reat wur-rk Doctor Bonsecours has done is the talk av the Frinch ar-rmy--an' she's his right-hand liftenant. She's as tender as tears, lad, but as brave as a lion--an' in about the same job as yeself. She don't mind the shells a-tall, a-tall! D'ye git that, Jeb?" "What town did she come from?" Jeb asked, his eyes growing thoughtful. "Sure, an' I can't think av it!" "Was it----" He stopped abruptly, as a strange and curious sensation seized him. It seemed as though the deck suddenly heaved upward--very much like the feeling he would have if, sitting in a hammock, someone sat down beside him. Immediately following this came a terrific explosion, numbing in its intensity, and a wall of maddened water leaped past the rail for a hundred feet into the air. In a twinkling Tim dragged him through the door, as a shower of debris came down upon the place where they had been sitting. The huge smoke funnel crashed to the deck, scattering soot in all directions, then balanced an instant, and plunged into the sea. In the midst of this confusion, even before the funnel disappeared, Tim was bellowing a command. His captain, at his side, waited as the men poured up to them, then said drily: "Belts on the nurses; see that everyone's on deck, and belt yourselves!" Life belts were everywhere within easy reach and, as the men scattered, Tim stopped an instant to hand one of them to his captain, who smilingly took it but was later seen tying it on Dr. Barrow. The sergeant then dashed below, hurrying toward the staterooms to be sure that everyone got up to deck. In his reckless determination to make Jeb see this duty through, he had not let go of his sleeve. "Take the doors on thot side," he now yelled at him in a voice of thunder, "an' I'll take this! Smash 'em down where they're jammed, an' look clost iverywhere inside! Sometimes women faints!"