y opposed to the
one they had previously been following. Experience had told them that
speed was one of the essentials to safety, even when in land-locked
waters such as the Firth of Clyde.

"You don't look like leaving us in a hurry," remarked Midshipman
Sefton, when he communicated the latest change of plans to Trefusis and
his chum.

"We don't mind in the slightest," Ross hastened to assure him. "It's
jolly comfortable on board the _Oxford_."

"Wait until we're ordered straight away for patrol work," said Sefton.
"It's more than likely that we may be pushed off to the Norwegian coast
without having so much as a sniff at Rosyth. We'll just about hit the
equinoctial gales, and in those latitudes they get ice and snow pretty
early in the autumn. But, by the by, I heard the doctor tell the
Commander that your pal, von Hauptwald, is in a pretty state of funk."

"I shouldn't wonder," replied Ross. "A court-martial will make it
pretty hot for him."

"It's hardly that," said Sefton. "The fellow's absolutely crazy with
fear. He's been imploring the master-at-arms and the sentry on the
cells to ask the skipper to shift him above the water-line. It's only
since the ship arrived in home waters, so it seems as if he's in mortal
dread of being cooped up below and the _Oxford_ being mined or
torpedoed."

"And what did the Captain say?"

"Merely told the M.A.A. to carry on. Since the cells are below the
water-line, and the King's Regulations say that prisoners are to be
placed in cells, that ends the matter."

Passing through the Little Minch, and continually steering an erratic
course in order to baffle any unterseebooten, should they be operating
off the West coast of Scotland, the _Oxford_ rounded Cape Wrath.

In spite of a rapidly falling glass the weather still remained fine,
although the heavy swell encountered off the coast of Sutherland and
Caithness betokened, in conjunction with the barometer, a gale at no
distant date.

"This will be you fellows' last night on board," remarked Farnworth,
one of the Acting Sub-lieutenants, as Ross and Vernon prepared to turn
into their hammocks after a strenuous sing-song in the gun-room mess.
"We'll be at Rosyth before noon to-morrow. 'Fraid it's been a bit tame
after the _Capella_. Beyond that affair of the _Tehuantepec Girl_
there hasn't been much doing. The small fry get all the excitement,
I'm sorry to say. These armoured cruisers seem to be neither fish,
fo