This vessel, which visibly grows larger as it comes nearer, is a
cruiser of about the same tonnage as the one that preceded her. No
flag is flying and I cannot guess her nationality. She continues
steaming at full speed in an effort to pass the zone of danger before
other engines can be launched. But how can she escape them since they
will swoop back upon her?
Thomas Roch places himself behind the second trestle as the cruiser
passes on to the surface of the abysm in which she will in turn soon
be swallowed up.
No sound disturbs the stillness.
Suddenly the rolling of drums and the blare of bugles is heard on
board the warship.
I know those bugle calls: they are French bugles! Great God! She is
one of the ships of my own country's navy and a French inventor is
about to destroy her!
No! it shall not be. I will rush towards Thomas Roch--shout to him
that she is a French ship. He does not, cannot, know it.
At a sign from Engineer Serko the inventor has raised the phial.
The bugles sound louder and more strident. It is the salute to the
flag. A flag unfurls to the breeze--the tricolor, whose blue, white
and red sections stand out luminously against the sky.
Ah! What is this? I understand! Thomas Roch is fascinated at the sight
of his national emblem. Slowly he lowers his arm as the flag flutters
up to the mast-head. Then he draws back and covers his eyes with his
hand.
Heavens above! All sentiment of patriotism is not then dead in his
ulcerated heart, seeing that it beats at the sight of his country's
flag!
My emotion is not less than his.
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