t?"

Anne laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, I don't know. I know something of the British and French Navies,
but patriotism--the sort of spirit you speak of--has always appeared to
me such an abstract thing as regards America. It's because, I suppose,
I have never known anything about it, because I have been more or less
of an expatriate all my life."

Jack had been watching a display of Ardois lights from the
_Jefferson's_ mast. He turned away, but spoke over his shoulder.

"Don't be that, Miss Wellington, for you have proved to me that a girl
or a child, reared as you have been, can be American in every instinct
and action. I had never believed that."

He hurried away to the bridge rail and Anne's arm turned red under the
impress of Sara's fingers.

In compliance with the _Jefferson's_ signals, the engines of the
flotilla began to throb and the boats turned to the eastward.

A cry came from the _D'Estang's_ lookout. Anne and Sara leaned forward
and saw that a blundering sailing vessel--her dark sails a blotch
against the sky, her hull invisible--was careening just ahead. She had
no lights, and curses on the heads of coastwise skippers who take risks
and place other vessels in jeopardy merely to save oil, swept through
the flotilla like ether waves.

Armitage let a good Anglo-Saxon objurgation slip from his tongue as he
turned toward the yeoman.

"Half speed!"

"Half speed, sir," answered the yeoman as he tugged at the engine room
telegraph.

All eyes were now on the schooner. How was she heading? A group of
seamen stood beside Armitage and Johnson on the bridge, trying to
ascertain that important point. A flash of lightning gave a momentary
glance of greasy sails bulged to port.

"She 's on the starboard tack, crossing the flotilla!"

"All right." There was relief in Jack's voice as he called for full
speed ahead.

"It's no fun to ram a merchantman, with all the law you get into," said
the signal quartermaster, standing near the young women. "And if they
hit you, good-bye."

But the schooner had a knowing captain. He had no intention of trying
to cross all those sharp bows. He quickly tacked between the
_D'Estang_ and _Barclay_ and passed the rest of the boats astern.

Slowly the boats were loafing along now.

At ten-thirty the Jefferson winked her signals at the rest of the
flotilla.

"Put out all lights."

As the young women glanced over the sea the truck lights died
r