spread out all over the
sea. They will be able to raid the British coast, may succeed in
running through the English channel, and then we shall have to round
them up all over again. They would scatter over the seven seas."

"Then we've got to lick 'em," declared Frank, grimly.

Captain Raleigh smiled.

"That's the spirit I like to see," he said quietly. "It is the spirit
that has carried the British flag to victory against overwhelming odds
on many occasions."

"But he is not an Englishman, sir," said Jack with a smile.

"What?" exclaimed Captain Raleigh. "Not an Englishman? Then what is
he?"

"American," was Jack's reply.

"Oh, well, it amounts practically to the same thing," declared Captain
Raleigh.

"Next to being an American," said Frank, quietly, "I would be English."

The first officer, Lieutenant MacDonald, burst into the captain's cabin
at this moment.

"Message from the _Glasgow_, sir!" he exclaimed. "German battle
squadron, steaming at twenty knots, sighted five miles off Jutland,
sir!"

CHAPTER XV

THE FIRST GUN

Skagerak, in which the greatest naval battle of history was about to be
fought, is an arm of the North Sea between Norway and Denmark. The
scene of the battle was laid off Jutland and Horn Reef, on the southern
extremity of Denmark.

From the reef of Heligoland, the main German base in the North Sea, to
Jutland, is about one hundred miles as the crow flies. Therefore, it
became evident that the German high sea fleet must have left the
protection of that supposedly impregnable fortress some time before.

That the advance of the German fleet had been well planned was
indicated by the very fact that it could successfully elude the British
cruisers patrolling the entrance to the mine fields that guarded
Heligoland itself. Could a British fleet of any size have got between
the German high sea fleet and Heligoland the menace of the German fleet
would have ended for all time.

At the moment, however, the British warships were scattered over the
North Sea in such a manner as to preclude such an attempt; and the best
Admiral Beatty and Admiral Jellicoe could hope for was to come up with
the German fleet and give battle, preventing, if possible, the escape
of any units of the fleet to other parts of the sea and to drive all
that the British could not sink back to Heligoland.

The German dash of one hundred miles across the North Sea was a bold
venture and one that the British had