. . . "Water is gaining on me! I am sinking!" . . .
"Boat is approaching your quarter!" These, and others alike, were our
war signals, framed to meet our ideas of the greatest peril we might
encounter in our conflict with the elements.

[Illustration: AN APPRENTICE IN THE MERCHANTS' SERVICE]

Of all this we write in a sad past tense. Our sea-bond is shattered.
There is no longer a brotherhood on the sea. The latest of our
recruits has betrayed us. The old book is useless, for it contains no
reading of the German's avowal, "Come on the deck of my submarine. I am
about to submerge!" . . . "Stand by, you helpless swine in the boats, while
I shell you and scatter your silly blood and brains!"

No longer will the receipt of a call of distress be the instant signal
(whatever the weather or your own plight) for putting the helm over. We
have shut the book! We are grown hardened and distrustful. S.O.S. may be
the fiend who has just torpedoed a crowded Red Cross, and endeavours by
his lying wireless to lure a Samaritan to the net. A heaving boat, or a
lone raft with a staff and a scrap, may only be closed with fearful
caution; they may be magnets for a minefield.

". . . still he called aloud, for he was in the
track of steamers. And presently he saw a steamer.
She carried no lights, but he described her form,
a darker shape upon the sea and sky, and saw the
sparks volley from her funnel.

"He shrieked till his voice broke, but the steamer
went on and vanished. The Irishman was furiously
enraged, but it was of no use to be angry. He went
on calling. So did the other four castaways, but
their cries were growing fainter and less
frequent.

"Then there loomed another steamer, and she, too,
went on. By this time, perhaps, an hour had gone
by, and the Arab firemen had fallen silent. The
Irishman could see them no longer. He never saw
them again. A third steamer hove in sight, and
she, too, went on. The Irishman cursed her with
the passionate intensity peculiar to the seaman,
and went on calling. It was a desperate
business. . . ."

The shame of it!

_Lusitania_, _Coquet_, _Serapis_, _Thracia_, _Mariston_, _The Belgian
Prince_, _Umaria_ . . .

". . . The commanding officer of the submarine,
leaning on t