shivered, and dissolved into a widespread cataract. The water below was
lashed into fury, in the midst of which a mighty death agony beat back
the troubled waves of the trade wind. Only then did the muffled double
boom of the explosion reach the ears of the spectators, presently to be
followed by a whispering, swift-skimming wavelet that swept irresistibly
across the bigger surges and lapped the ship's side, as for a message
that the work was done.

Here and there in the sea a glint of silver, a patch of purple, or dull
red, or a glistening apparition of black showed where the unintended
victims of the explosion, the gay-hued open-sea fish of the warm waters,
had succumbed to the force of the shock. Of the intended victim there was
no sign save a few fragments of wood bobbing in a swirl of water.

When Barnett, the ordnance officer in charge of the destruction, returned
to the ship, Carter complimented him.

"Good clean job, Barnett. She was a tough customer, too."

"What was she?" asked Ives.

"The _Caroline Lemp_, three-masted schooner. Anyone know about her?"

Ives turned to the ship's surgeon, Trendon, a grizzled and brief-spoken
veteran, who had at his finger's tips all the lore of all the waters
under the reign of the moon.

"What does the information bureau of the Seven Seas know about it?"

"Lost three years ago--spring of 1901--got into ice field off the tip of