rd eyes, and shouted to people
within.

The people within--MY people! My fingers tightened on my revolver.
What was this war nonsense to me? I would go round among the hummocks
with the idea of approaching the three bungalows inconspicuously
from the flank. This fight at sea might serve my purpose--except
for that, it had no interest for me at all. Boom! boom! The huge
voluminous concussions rushed past me, beat at my heart and passed.
In a moment Nettie would come out to see.

First one and then two other wrappered figures came out of the
bungalows to join the first. His arm pointed seaward, and his voice,
a full tenor, rose in explanation. I could hear some of the words.
"It's a German!" he said. "She's caught."

Some one disputed that, and there followed a little indistinct
babble of argument. I went on slowly in the circuit I had marked
out, watching these people as I went.

They shouted together with such a common intensity of direction
that I halted and looked seaward. I saw the tall fountain flung by
a shot that had just missed the great warship. A second rose still
nearer us, a third, and a fourth, and then a great uprush of dust,
a whirling cloud, leapt out of the headland whence the rocket had
come, and spread with a slow deliberation right and left. Hard on
that an enormous crash, and the man with the full voice leapt and
cried, "Hit!"

Let me see! Of course, I had to go round beyond the bungalows, and
then come up towards the group from behind.

A high-pitched woman's voice called, "Honeymooners! honeymooners!
Come out and see!"

Something gleamed in the shadow of the nearer bungalow, and
a man's voice answered from within. What he said I did not catch,
but suddenly I heard Nettie calling very distinctly, "We've been
bathing."

The man who had first come out shouted, "Don't you hear the guns?
They're fighting--not five miles from shore."

"Eh?" answered the bungalow, and a window opened.

"Out there!"

I did not hear the reply, because of the faint rustle of my own
movements. Clearly these people were all too much occupied by the
battle to look in my direction, and so I walked now straight toward
the darkness that held Nettie and the black desire of my heart.

"Look!" cried some one, and pointed skyward.

I glanced up, and behold! The sky was streaked with bright green
trails. They radiated from a point halfway between the western
horizon and the zenith, and within the shining clouds of th