e gave the order for the two vessels,
which a few hours ago had been such terrible engines of destruction, to
rise into the air and wing their harmless flight towards Kiel.

When the _Flying Fish_ and the _See Adler_ took the air, and shipped
their course eastward, the position of the opposing fleets was somewhat
as follows: The cruisers of the A Squadron, _Amphitrite_, _Andromeda_,
_Europa_, _Niobe_, _Blenheim_ and _Blake_, with fifteen first-class
torpedo boats and ten destroyers, had got out to sea from Spithead
unharmed. All these cruisers were good for twenty knots, the torpedo
boats for twenty-five, and the destroyers for thirty. The _Sutlej_,
_Ariadne_, _Argonaut_ and _Diadem_ had got clear away from the Solent,
with ten first-class torpedo boats and five destroyers. They met about
four miles south-east of St Catherine's Point. Commodore Hoskins of the
_Diadem_ was the senior officer in command, and so he signalled for
Captain Pennell, of the _Andromeda_, to come on board, and talk matters
over with him, but before the conversation was half-way through, a black
shape, with four funnels crowned with smoke and flame, came tearing up
from the westward, made the private signal, and ran alongside the
_Diadem_.

The news that her commander brought was this--Admiral Lord Beresford had
succeeded in eluding the notice of the French Channel Fleet, and was on
his way up the south-west with the intention of getting behind Admiral
Durenne's fleet, and crushing it between his own force to seaward and
the batteries and Reserve Fleet on the landward side. The Commander of
the destroyer was, of course, quite ignorant of the disaster which had
befallen the battleships of the Reserve Fleet and Portsmouth, and when
the captain of the cruiser told him the tidings, though he received the
news with the almost fatalistic _sang froid_ of the British naval
officer, turned a shade or two paler under the bronze of his skin.

"That is terrible news, sir," he said, "and it will probably alter the
Admiral's plans considerably. I must be off as soon as possible, and let
him know: meanwhile, of course, you will use your own judgment."

"Yes," replied the Commodore, "but I think you had better take one of
our destroyers, say the _Greyhound_, back with you. She's got her
bunkers full, and she can manage thirty-two knots in a sea like this."

At this moment the sentry knocked at the door of the Commodore's room.

"Come in," said Commodore Hosk