with fire and thunder a hundred yards ahead.
Out of the cabin came the rocket bearers, quite over their fright by now, and acting with the nervous steadiness which acute danger brings. One of the sailors from the regular crew of the tug moved along the rail, mounting the fire signals one after the other for shooting. Immediately behind him came Hogan, using his one good hand to fish matches from his watch pocket and light the fuses.
The first rocket lit with a sputter, for a moment its fiery blowing filled the deck with smoke, then it darted skyward, with a tremendous swis-s-sh! Up, in a long black column it went, into the very heart of the hot brazen sky, then it exploded with a faint pop, and a black head of smoke expanded at a prodigious height. In the midst of the smoke-filled deck, Hogan was applying his match to another. So as the tug plowed forward, tall slender pillars of smoke, crowned with swelling palm-like heads, arose to dizzy heights out of her path.
By this time huge shells were bursting about the Vulcan with crashing monotony. Sometimes the dodging little vessel ran through the
