tled down into "ship-shapeliness," and
the silhouette of perhaps the most famous of the world's great steamers
sharpened against the sunlit afternoon clouds.

The change which had been wrought in the appearance of the _Lymptania_
since last I had seen her was almost beyond belief. Then she had been a
hospital ship, with everything about her, from snowy whiteness to red
crosses in paint and coloured lights, calculated to establish her
character, to give her the protection of conspicuousness. Now she sought
protection in quite the opposite way. Every trick of scientific
camouflage had been employed to render her inconspicuous; while, if that
failed, there were the destroyers. The protection of these big liners is
a considerable undertaking, but it has its redeeming features. As U-boat
bait they are unrivalled, and the number of German submarines which have
been sent to the bottom as a direct consequence of attempting to sink
one of them will make a long and interesting list when the time comes to
publish it.

There was something almost awesome in the emptiness of the great ship,
in the lifelessness of the decks, in the miles of blinded ports. The
heads of a few sailors "snugging down" on the forecastle, a knot of
officers at the end of the bridge, and two stewardesses in white
uniforms leaning over the rail of one of the upper decks--that was all
there was visible of human life on a ship which a few days before had
been packed to the funnels with its thousands of American soldiers. A
lanky destroyer gunner lounging by a ladder, described her exactly when
he said to one of his mates: "Gee, but ain't she the lonesome one!"

The captain of the _Zip_ turned his glasses back to cover the little
group of officers on the liner's bridge. "There's the skipper," he said
presently. "I only hope he's well ahead of the game on the sleeps, for I
wouldn't mind betting that he won't be leaving that bridge for a cup of
coffee for some time. It's going to be an anxious interval for him--very
anxious. It's quite beyond calculation, the value to the Allies at this
moment of a ship of the size and speed of the _Lymptania_, and her
skipper must know from what has happened the last week, that the Huns
are all out to bag her this time, and he can hardly be able to extract
any too much comfort out of the fact that it's about a hundred to one
that we'll bag the Fritz that tries it--either before or after the
event. Yes, it will be an anxious tim