ice which I feared I should have to make. I began
to make brief visits to the parlour to look out of the window and see
if I could see any signs of movement in the Armada. And then for the
second time I saw Tiel in a genial cheerful humour, and this time there
was no doubt of the cause. He too was in a state of tension, and his
mind, like mine, was running on the coming drama. In fact, as the
afternoon wore on, his thoughts were so entirely wrapped up in this
that he frankly talked of nothing else. Was I sure we should have at
least four submarines? he asked me; and would they be brought well in
and take the risk? Indeed, I never heard him ask so many questions, or
appear so pleased as he did when I reassured him on all these points.

As for Eileen, she was quite as excited as either of us, and when Tiel
was not asking me questions, she was; until once again prudence drove
me back to my room. On one of my visits she gave us some tea, but that
is the only meal I remember any of us eating between our early and
hurried lunch and the evening when the crash came.

The one thing I looked for as I gazed out of that window was the rising
of smoke from the battle-fleet, and at last I saw it. Stream after
stream, black or grey, gradually mounted, first from one leviathan and
then from another, till the air was darkened hundreds of feet above
them, and if our flotilla were in such a position that they could look
for this sign, they must have seen it. This time I returned to my room
with a heart a little lightened.

"I have done my duty," I said to myself, "come what may of it!"

And I do not think that any impartial reader will deny that, so far as
my own share of this enterprise was concerned, I had done my very
utmost to make it succeed.

The next time I came down my spirits rose higher still, and for the
moment I quite forgot the danger in which I stood. The light cruisers,
the advance-guard of the fleet, were beginning to move! This time when
I went back to my room I forced myself to read two whole chapters of a
futile novel before I again took off the lid and peeped in to see how
the stew was cooking. The instant I had finished the second chapter I
leapt up and opened the door--and then I stood stock-still and
listened. A distant sound of voices reached me, and a laugh rang out
that was certainly neither Tiel's nor Eileen's.

I locked my door, slipped back again, and prepared to burn my papers;
but though I