ve to cut in between the two, to make the land below Atlantic City,
and take advantage of territorial waters. If there is no serious
intention behind the jamming of the wireless, there will be no great
harm done--we shall only lose ten hours on the passage; if a raider
is out, we shall, at least, be well off the expected route. We pass the
orders.

A quiet night. We are steering into the afterglow of a brilliant sunset.
The mast and rigging stand out in clear black outline against lingering
daylight as we swing south four points. The look-out aloft turns from
his post and scans the wake curving to our sheer; anon, he wonders at
the coming of a mate to share his watch. Passengers, on a stroll, note
unusual movement about the boat-deck, where the hands are swinging out
lifeboats and clearing the gear. As the carpenter and his mates go the
rounds, screwing blinds to the ports and darkening ship, other
passengers hurry up from below and join the groups on deck; an
excitement is quickly evident. They had thought all danger over when, in
thirty degrees west, we allowed them to discard the cumbersome
life-jackets that they had worn since leaving the Mersey. And
now--almost on the threshold of security and firm land--again the
enervating restrictions and routine, the sinister preparations, the
atmosphere of sudden danger. Rumours and alarms fly from lip to lip; we
deem it best to publish that the wireless has heard the twitter of a
strange bird.

Before midnight, the bird is identified. Our theories and conjectures
are set at rest. The operator, changing his wave-length suddenly from
600 to 300 metres, succeeds in taking a message. '_From Bermuda_'--of
all places--'_to ABMV German armed submarine left Newport eighth stop
take all precautions ends_.' A submarine! And we had thought the limits
of their activity stopped at thirty degrees west. Even the Atlantic is
not now broad enough! The definite message serves to clear our doubts. A
submarine from Newport will certainly go down off Nantucket. Our course
should now take us ninety miles south of that. There remains the measure
of his activity. A fighting submarine that can navigate such a distance
is new to us. His speed and armament are unknown. We can hardly gauge
his movements by standards of the types we know. We are unarmed; our
seventeen knots top speed may not be fast enough for an unknown
super-submarine. Crowded as we are by civilian passengers, we cannot
stand to gunf