His feet warned him of the cataclysm that was developing beneath them--the liquid water-spout invading with a foamy bellowing the space between keel and deck, destroying the metal screens, knocking down the bulk-heads, upsetting every object, dragging them forth with all the violence of an inundation, with the ramming force of a breaking dyke.

The hold was rapidly becoming converted into a watery and leaden coffin fast going to the bottom.
The aft gun hurled its first shot.

To Ferragut its report seemed mere irony.

No one knew as he did the ship's desperate condition.
"To the life boats!" he shouted.

"Every one to the boats!" The steamer was tipping up in an alarming way as the men calmly obeyed his orders without losing their self-control.
A desperate vibration was jarring the deck.