Besides, if they drop within a few hundred yards of the vessel, they
will be quite near enough to utterly destroy it.
The time has come.
"Thomas Roch!" Engineer Serko cries, and points to the cruiser.
The latter is steaming slowly towards the northwestern point of the
island and is between four and five miles off.
Roch nods assent, and waves them back from the trestle.
Ker Karraje, Captain Spade and the others draw back about fifty paces.
Thomas Roch then takes the stopper from the phial which he holds in
his right hand, and successively pours into a hole in the rear-end of
each engine a few drops of the liquid, which mixes with the fusing
matter.
Forty-five seconds elapse--the time necessary for the combination to
be effected--forty-five seconds during which it seems to me that my
heart ceases to beat.
A frightful whistling is then heard, and the three engines tear
through the air, describing a prolonged curve at a height of three
hundred feet, and pass the cruiser.
Have they missed it? Is the danger over?
No! the engines, after the manner of Artillery Captain Chapel's
discoid projectile, return towards the doomed vessel like an
Australian boomerang.
The next instant the air is shaken with a violence comparable to that
which would be caused by the explosion of a magazine of melinite or
dynamite, Back Cup Island trembles to its very foundations.
The cruiser has disappeared,--blown to pieces.
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