We are so informed
by the press from the other side. Even such a simple expression as that
one of the look-out men was stationed in the "eyes of the ship" was too
much for the senators of the land of graphic expression. What it must
have been in the more recondite matters I won't even try to think,
because I have no mind for smiles just now. They were greatly exercised
about the sound of explosions heard when half the ship was under water
already. Was there one? Were there two? They seemed to be smelling a
rat there! Has not some charitable soul told them (what even schoolboys
who read sea stories know) that when a ship sinks from a leak like this,
a deck or two is always blown up; and that when a steamship goes down by
the head, the boilers may, and often do break adrift with a sound which
resembles the sound of an explosion? And they may, indeed, explode, for
all I know. In the only case I have seen of a steamship sinking there
was such a sound, but I didn't dive down after her to investigate. She
was not of 45,000 tons and declared unsinkable, but the sight was
impressive enough. I shall never forget the muffled, mysterious
detonation, the sudden agitation of the sea round the slowly raised
stern, and to this day I have in my eye the propeller, seen perfectly
still in its frame against a clear evening sky.
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