p?" asked Ludwig.

"Yes," replied von Sperrgebiet. "One of their cursed Armed Merchant
Cruisers." He bent over the chart table for a minute and gave an order
to the helmsman.

"A fresh attack?" queried the Second-in-Command eagerly.

Von Sperrgebiet returned to the periscope. "When you have been at this
work as long as I have," he replied, "you will find it healthier not to
meddle with Armed Merchant Cruisers. They are all eyes and they shoot
straight. No, for the time being our glorious work is done, and we
shall now depart from a locality that is quickly becoming unhealthy."
He glanced at the depth gauge and thence to the faces of the crew who
stood waiting for orders.

"The gramophone," he called out harshly. "Switch on the gramophone,
you glum-faced swine.... Look sharp! Something lively...!"

* * * * *

At seven minutes past three in the afternoon, Cecily Thorogood, that
very self-possessed and prettily-clad young woman, was seated in a
deck-chair on the saloon-deck of a 6,000-ton liner; an American
magazine was open in front of her, under cover of which she was
exploring the contents of a box of chocolates with the practised eye of
the expert, in quest of a particular species which contained
crystallised ginger and found favour in her sight.

At nineteen minutes past three Cecily Thorogood, still self-possessed,
but no longer very prettily clad, was submerged in the chilly Atlantic
up to her shoulders and clinging to the life-line of an upturned
jolly-boat. To the very young Fourth Officer who clung to the boat
beside her with one arm and manoeuvred for a position from which he
could encircle Cecily's waist protectingly with the other, she
announced as well as her chattering teeth would allow that she

(a) was in no immediate danger of drowning;

(b) was not in the least frightened;

(c) was perfectly capable of holding on without anybody's support as
long as was necessary.

The chain of occurrences that connected situation No. 1 with situation
No. 2 was short enough in point of actual time, but so crowded with
unexpected and momentous happenings that it had already assumed the
proportions of a confused epoch in Cecily's mind. There were gaps in
the sequence of events that remained blanks in her memory. Faces,
insignificant incidents, thumbnail sketches and broad, bustling
panorama of activity alternated with the blank spaces. The heroic and
the preposterous were