the sound transmitted by the sea
of a bugle-call to quarters. He shut off the bulb, watched a wandering
shaft of light from the flag-ship seeking him, then contracted his own
invisible beam to a diameter of about three feet, to fall upon the
flag-ship, and played it back and forth, seeking gun ports and apertures
and groups of men, painting all with that blinding light that they could
not see, nor immediately sense. There was nothing to indicate that he
had succeeded; the faces of the different groups were still turned his
way, and the futile searchlight still wandered around, unable to bring
to their view the white tube with its cup-like base.

Still waving the wandering beam of white light, the flag-ship passed on,
bringing along the second in line, and again Metcalf turned on his bulb.
He heard her bugle-call, and saw, in varied shades of green, the
twinkling red and blue lights of her masthead signals, received from the
flag-ship and passed down the line. And again he played that green disk
of deadly light upon the faces of her crew. This ship, too, was seeking
him with her searchlight, and soon, from the whole nine, a moving
network of brilliant beams flashed and scintillated across the sky; but
not one settled upon the cause of their disquiet.

Ship after ship passed on, each with its bugle-call to quarters, each
with its muster of all hands to meet the unknown emergency--the menace
on a hostile coast of a faint white light on the port beam--but not one
firing a shot or shell; there was nothing to fire at. And with the
passing of the last of the nine Metcalf listened to a snapping and a
buzzing overhead that told of the burning out of the carbons in the
light.

"Good work for the expenditure," he murmured, wearily. "Let's see--two
carbons and about twenty amperes of current, against nine ships at ten
millions apiece. Well, we'll soon know whether or not it worked."

While an electrician rigged new carbons he rested his eyes and his
brain; for the mental and physical strain had been severe. Then he
played the light upon the colliers and supply ships as they charged by,
disposing of them in the same manner, and looked for other craft of
larger menace. But there were none, except the torpedo contingent, and
these he decided to leave alone. There were fifteen of them, each as
speedy and as easily handled as his own craft; and already, apprised by
the signaled instructions from ahead, they were spreading out into a