neless windows. "That's the remains of our auxiliary radio," he
said, grinning; "and look at the fo'c'sle. Swept clean, pretty near.
Thank heaven, the gun's left. But, do you remember that heavy iron bar
the muzzle rested on? Gone! It was probably that, with some of the
shells in the rack, that made all that rat-a-tat. But what of it? Look
how she rides 'em now that she's eased down a bit. Only trouble is,
she's got to go it again. Look how we've dropped back." And he gave the
engine-room, by voice-pipe, a new "standard" speed, and threw the
telegraph over to "Full."

The pulsing throb began anew, and under the urge of speeding propellers
the _Zip_, steering in narrowed zig-zags quickly regained her station.
All of the destroyers, and the _Lymptania_ as well, had eased down
slightly, and the reduced speed meant also a reduction of the danger of
another of those deep-sea dives, something no craft but a submarine is
built to stand the strain of. But even as it was we were driving right
up to the limit of endurance all the time, and the sea that did not come
rolling up green right over the bows was the exception rather than the
rule. From the forecastle right away aft there was never more than a few
seconds at a time when the main deck was free of rollicking cascades of
boiling brine, and there were moments when only the funnels and the
after superstructure, rearing up like isolated rocks on a storm-beaten
coast, were visible above the swirling flood. There were times when the
men standing-by at the guns and torpedo-tubes seemed almost to be
engulfed; yet none of them was swept away, and they even--from the way
they kept joking each other in the lulls--appeared to be getting a good
deal of sport out of the thing.

The barometer was falling, and both wind and waves gained steadily in
force as the afternoon lengthened and merged into a twilight that was
itself already melting before the rising moon. Clouds were few and
scattering, and it was plain there were to be no hours dark enough to
offer any protection from submarine attack. Looming as large as ever,
the big liner offered scarcely a better target on the side she was
illuminated by the moonlight than on the one from which she was
silhouetted against it. From either side a fifth of a mile of steel
would "take a lot of missing," and her captain, sensibly enough, would
not ease his engines by a revolution more than was necessary to keep
within his destroyer screen. It was