Olga Romanoff . , her huge bulk vanished underthe waves again. But hardly was her work done than a secondbattleship charged into the paralysed squadron, sending two of itsmembers to the bottom and crippling three more before she, too,vanished into the safe obscurity of the depths. A third was met by a storm of shells from the air-ships,which burst round her and under her just as she came to thesurface, and blew her out of the water in fragments. Heedlessof this, a fourth plunged fiercely through the foaming area ofthe explosion, and had wrecked two more Moslem vessels beforea shell smashed her
Olga Romanoff . , her huge bulk vanished underthe waves again. But hardly was her work done than a secondbattleship charged into the paralysed squadron, sending two of itsmembers to the bottom and crippling three more before she, too,vanished into the safe obscurity of the depths. A third was met by a storm of shells from the air-ships,which burst round her and under her just as she came to thesurface, and blew her out of the water in fragments. Heedlessof this, a fourth plunged fiercely through the foaming area ofthe explosion, and had wrecked two more Moslem vessels beforea shell smashed her propeller and laid her helpless on the of the Moslems instantly backed out and rushed at her,tearing two great ragged holes in her side and sinking herinstantly, only to be sunk themselves in turn by a fifth chargefrom below. Scarcely had this last foe disappeared in safety than a swarmof torpedoes, converging from all sides, encircled the remainingMoslem battleships. Some plunged beneath the waves to. The First Blow 267 escape them, but these never reappeared. The remainder, tornand twisted and shattered by a series of explosions that flungthe water mountains high all round them, sank like stones, andwhen the sea once more settled down, the grim work of deathhad been completed. The fate which had so swiftly overwhelmed the expeditionthat had set out from Alexandria had almost simultaneouslybefallen four other expeditions which bad started at the samehour from Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Oran. The one disasterhad been an almost exact reproduction of the others. The same order, formation, and tactics had been observed ineach of the five cases, and each of the five squadrons of trans-ports and fleets of submarine battleships had been overwhelmedand completely destroyed by the same mysterious fate. Offive hundred transports and the same number of battleshipswhich Sultan Khalid had possessed at sunrise on that fatal16th of May not a single one remained by sundown, and o
Size: 1313px × 1903px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidolgaro, booksubjectutopias
