_Later_.

The yacht has come. At half-past eleven the lookout signalled that a
steamer without lights was creeping in towards the Creek. I ran out to
the Flagstaff, and saw her steal in like a ghost. She is painted a
steely blue-grey, and it is almost impossible to see her at any distance.
She certainly goes wonderfully. Although there was not enough throb from
the engines to mar the absolute stillness, she came on at a fine speed,
and within a few minutes was close to the boom. I had only time to run
down to give orders to draw back the boom when she glided in and stopped
dead at the harbour wall. Rooke steered her himself, and he says he
never was on a boat that so well or so quickly answered her helm. She is
certainly a beauty, and so far as I can see at night perfect in every
detail. I promise myself a few pleasant hours over her in the daylight.
The men seem a splendid lot.

But I do not feel sleepy; I despair of sleep to-night. But work demands
that I be fit for whatever may come, and so I shall try to sleep--to
rest, at any rate.

RUPERT'S JOURNAL.--_Continued_.

_July_ 4, 1907.

I was up with the first ray of sunrise, so by the time I had my bath and
was dressed there was ample light. I went down to the dock at once, and
spent the morning looking over the vessel, which fully justifies Rooke's
enthusiasm about her. She is built on lovely lines, and I can quite
understand that she is enormously fast. Her armour I can only take on
the specifications, but her armament is really wonderful. And there are
not only all the very newest devices of aggressive warfare--indeed, she
has the newest up-to-date torpedoes and torpedo-guns--but also the
old-fashioned rocket-tubes, which in certain occasions are so useful.
She has electric guns and the latest Massillon water-guns, and Reinhardt
electro-pneumatic "deliverers" for pyroxiline shells. She is even
equipped with war-balloons easy of expansion, and with compressible
Kitson aeroplanes. I don't suppose that there is anything quite like her
in the world.

The crew are worthy of her. I can't imagine where Rooke picked up such a
splendid lot of men. They are nearly all man-of-warsmen; of various
nationalities, but mostly British. All young men--the oldest of them
hasn't got into the forties--and, so far as I can learn, all experts of
one kind or another