er interest on her book, found the
page grow suddenly blurred and incomprehensible....

"It's getting chilly," said the elder girl at length. She rose to her
feet with a little involuntary shiver, and stood for a moment staring
out towards the sea. "I wonder..." she began, and her voice trailed
off into silence. Betty began slowly to repack the basket. "Sometimes
I pray," said Eileen Cavendish, "when I want things to happen very
much. And sometimes I just hold my thumbs like a pagan. Sometimes I
do both. Let's do both now."

So they sat silent side by side; one held her breath and the other held
her thumbs, but only the dusk crept in from the sea.

CHAPTER X

THE BATTLE OF THE MIST

Thorogood, Lieutenant of the Afternoon Watch, climbed the ladder to the
upper bridge as the bell struck the half-hour after noon. A blue
worsted muffler, gift and handiwork of an aunt on the outbreak of war,
enfolded his neck. He wore a pair of glasses in a case slung over one
shoulder and black leather gauntlet-gloves.

The Officer of the Forenoon Watch, known among his messmates as
Tweedledee, was focusing the range-finder on the ship ahead of them in
the line; he looked round as the new-comer appeared, and greeted him
with a grin.

"Hullo, James," he said. "Your afternoon watch? Well, here you are."
He made a comprehensive gesture embracing the vast Fleet that was
spread out over the waters as far as the eye could reach.

"Divisions in line ahead, columns disposed abeam, course S.E. Speed,
15 knots. Glass low and steady. The Cruisers are ahead there, beyond
the Destroyers," he nodded ahead. "But you can't see them because of
the mist. The Battle-cruisers are somewhere beyond them again, with
their Light Cruisers and Destroyers--about thirty miles to the
southward. The hands are at dinner and all is peace. She's keeping
station quite well now." The speaker moved to the range-finder again
and peered into it at the next ahead. "Right to a yard, James."

Thorogood nodded. "Thank you: I hope I'll succeed in keeping her
there. Any news?"

"News?" The other laughed. "What about?"

"Well," replied Thorogood, "the perishing Hun, let's say."

The Navigator, thoughtfully biting the end of a pencil, came out of the
chart-house with a note-book in his hand, in which he had been working
out the noon reckoning.

"Pilot," said the departing Officer of the Forenoon Watch, "James is
thirsting for news of the en