, as well as a Maxim's. I was
eloquent as I told how our four-inch gun might be expected to
shake the ship. After that, in the dimness we talked shop; we had
neither of us possibly had many easy openings for that ravishing
employment lately.

Was it right to pray for our own side's success? I was steadfast
in my scruples as to praying thus, my new-found friend was
inclined to be a little scornful of them. 'Is there a God of the
Germans fighting the English tribal God?' I asked rather
irreverently, and my friend showed that he was shocked. I
apologized. 'Let's leave the Supreme Power out,' I said. 'Let's
consider the action of the saints in this war. Are they supposed
to be scrapping like the gods in Homer English Saint George
against German Saint Michael and so on?' But my friend did not
seem very keen about either Homer or hagiology. He explained that
he was a C.M.S. man, and not a medievalist. The discussion
languished, ere he murmured 'Good night.'

I slept rather fitfully. I was awake long before the ship moved
away on her fierce errand. At last, when she had been steaming
some while, I stole down in the dark to the bathroom. When I came
out of it the grey twilight was beginning. I crept aft and looked
over the bulwark, wondering how far we were away now. The shore
Maxim was in place there with plenty of sand bags about it, but
the officer in charge of it was still stretched abed. His friend
the Intelligence Officer, who had messed with us last night, was
snoring on another bed beside him. I stood looking at a dusky
island in the moonlight, and began praying a favorite prayer of
mine for those times, asking God to let Saint Michael cover our
heads in the day of battle. I muttered the prayer very low, but
it appeared that somebody heard. A slim figure, seemingly in
khaki, that I had not noticed, rose up from a seal; on the sand
bags.

'Are you praying something about battles?' it asked. I started,
and assented clumsily.

'How does one pray about battles nowadays?' the investigator
proceeded. He spoke in the friendliest way, and managed to set
even me at ease. So I told him what I had prayed for.

'It sounds a fair sort of prayer; better than some I've heard,'
he allowed, as he sat down again. 'Some people seem to forget the
last lot of the Books in the Bible when they pray nowadays.' I
heartily agreed.

'I don't believe for one,' he went on, 'that Saint Michael is
passionately interested in wiping out eith