on her decks.  But her flag was still flying and the British ships kept circling around her, thinking she still wished to fight, but not coming near enough to permit the use of her torpedo tubes.  Miserable was the plight of the Leipzig’s crew, for the two hundred men who were still alive were unable to get to her flag on account of the fire aboard her, and they had to remain inactive while the Carnarvon and Glasgow poured round after round into their ship.  Only twelve remained alive at nine o’clock, when she began to list to port.  Slowly more and more of the under-water part of her hull showed above the sea, and she continued to heel until her keel was right side up.  In this position she sank, a large bubble marking the spot.

When the Nuernberg left the line of German ships at one o’clock, it was the British cruiser Kent that went after her, a vessel more heavily armed than the German ship, yet about a knot slower.  But by hard work on the part of the engineers and stokers of the Kent she was able, by five o’clock, to get within firing distance of the Nuernberg.  By a strange trick of fate the Kent was sister ship to the Monmouth which had fallen victim to one of the Nuernberg’s torpedoes in the battle off Coronel.  Here, too, was a duel with human interest in it.  In their desire for revenge, the men of the Kent made fuel of even her furniture in order to speed up her engines.  Her 6-inch guns now began to strike the German ship, and soon a fire broke out aboard her.  She could have ended the German vessel by keeping a fire upon her while remaining too distant to be within range of the Nuernberg’s 4-inch guns, but dusk was gathering and an evening mist was settling down upon the water.  Consequently the Kent drew nearer to her adversary.  The firing of the Nuernberg was then effective and more than twenty of her shells took good effect on the British ship.  It was only through prompt action on the part of her crew that her magazine was kept from exploding, for a shell set fire to the passage leading to it.

By seven o’clock in the evening the Nuernberg was practically “blind,” for the flames from the fire that was raging on her had reached her conning tower.  A member of her crew hauled down her flag, and the Kent, thinking that the fight was over, came close to her.  While within a few hundred yards of her, however, she was greeted with new firing from the German cruiser.  But this ceased under a raking from the Kent’s starboard guns, and once again the flag of the Nuernberg, which had been run up on resumption of shooting, was hauled down.  Members of her crew then had to jump into the sea to escape death from burning—­the fire was quenched only when she went down at half past seven.  The overworked engineers and stokers of the Kent were rewarded for their hard work by being permitted to come on deck to watch the Nuernberg go down, and all were soon engaged in helping to save the lives of the German sailors in the water.  Just as the red glow of the sinking Nuernberg was dying down a large four-masted sailing ship, with all sails set, came out of the mist, her canvas tinged red by the flames’ rays.  Silently she went by, disappearing again into the mist, a weird addition to an uncanny scene.