At the same time the ship seemed to be lifted bodily.

Then she fell back, apparently striking on her side, and for several minutes rolled with sickening lurches, as though in the trough of a heavy sea.
In the meantime Cabot was struggling furiously to open his stateroom door; but it had so jammed in its casing that his utmost efforts failed to move it.

The steel deck beams overhead were twisted like willow wands, the iron side of the ship was crumpled as though it were a sheet of paper, and with every downward lurch a torrent of icy water poured in about the air port, which, though still closed, had been wrenched out of position.

With a horrid dread the prisoner realised that unless quickly released he must drown where he was, and, unable to open the door, he began to kick at it with the hope of smashing one of its panels.
[Illustration: He began to kick at it with the hope of smashing one of its panels.] With his first effort in this direction there came another muffled roar like that of an explosion, and he felt the ship quiver as though it were being rent in twain.

At the same moment his door flew open of its own accord, and he was nearly suffocated by an inrush of steam.
Springing forward, and blindly groping his way through this, the bewildered lad finally reached the stairs he had so recently descended.
In another minute he had gained the deck, where he stood gasping for breath and vainly trying to discover what terrible thing had happened.
Not a human being was to be seen, and the forward part of the ship was concealed beneath a dense cloud of steam and smoke that hung over it like a pall.