eckon we aren't wanted down there. It's no more than a covering fight
on our side. All those tenders and store-ships of ours are going on
southwest by west to New York to make a floating depot for us. See?" He
dabbed his forefinger on the map. "Here we are. Our train of stores goes
there, our battleships elbow the Americans out of our way there."

When Bert went down to the men's mess-room to get his evening ration,
hardly any one took notice of him except just to point him out for
an instant. Every one was talking of the battle, suggesting,
contradicting--at times, until the petty officers hushed them, it rose
to a great uproar. There was a new bulletin, but what it said he did not
gather except that it concerned the Barbarossa. Some of the men stared
at him, and he heard the name of "Booteraidge" several times; but no one
molested him, and there was no difficulty about his soup and bread when
his turn at the end of the queue came. He had feared there might be no
ration for him, and if so he did not know what he would have done.

Afterwards he ventured out upon the little hanging gallery with the
solitary sentinel. The weather was still fine, but the wind was rising
and the rolling swing of the airship increasing. He clutched the rail
tightly and felt rather giddy. They were now out of sight of land,
and over blue water rising and falling in great masses. A dingy old
brigantine under the British flag rose and plunged amid the broad blue
waves--the only ship in sight.

3

In the evening it began to blow and the air-ship to roll like a porpoise
as it swung through the air. Kurt said that several of the men were
sea-sick, but the motion did not inconvenience Bert, whose luck it was
to be of that mysterious gastric disposition which constitutes a good
sailor. He slept well, but in the small hours the light awoke him, and
he found Kurt staggering about in search of something. He found it at
last in the locker, and held it in his hand unsteadily--a compass. Then
he compared his map.

"We've changed our direction," he said, "and come into the wind. I can't
make it out. We've turned away from New York to the south. Almost as if
we were going to take a hand--"

He continued talking to himself for some time.

Day came, wet and windy. The window was bedewed externally, and they
could see nothing through it. It was also very cold, and Bert decided
to keep rolled up in his blankets on the locker until the bugle summoned
him