ir
just now. You can go to your berth and sleep in peace, and to-morrow
you shall be half-way across the Atlantic without an enemy's ship in
sight."

"Captain Frazer," said Michael very seriously, "with your leave I
shall not go to my berth; and what is more, I can tell you that very
few of us will get much sleep to-night, and that if you do not back I
hardly think you will be flying the British flag to-morrow. Ha! look
there--and there!"

Michael seized the captain's arm suddenly, and pointed rapidly to the
south-east and north-east. Two thin rays of light flashed up into the
sky one after the other. Then came a third from the south-west, and
then darkness again. At the same instant came the hails from the
look-outs announcing the lights.

Captain Frazer was wrong, and he saw that he was at a glance. The
flash in the north-east could not be from a friend, for it was a
plain answer to the known enemy in the south-east, and so too in all
probability was the third. If so, the _Aurania_ was almost
surrounded.

The captain wasted no words in confessing his error, but ran up on to
the bridge to rectify it as far as he could at once. The helm was put
hard over, the port screw was reversed, and the steamer swung round
in a wide sweep, and was soon speeding back westward over her own
tracks. An hour's run brought her in sight of the lights of the
_North German_ and her escort. She slowed as she passed them, and
told the news. Then she sped on again at full-speed to meet the
_Oceana_ and the two cruisers, which were about fifty miles behind.

By one A.M. the three cruisers and the three liners had joined
forces, and were steaming westward at twenty knots an hour, the
liners in single file led by a cruiser, and having one on each beam.
Soon the flashes on the horizon grew more frequent, always drawing
closer together.

Then those in the westward dropped from the perpendicular to the
horizontal, and swept the water as though seeking something. It was
not long before the darting rays of one of the searchlights fell
across the track of the British flotilla. Instantly from all three
points converging flashes were concentrated upon it, revealing the
outline of every ship with the most perfect distinctness.

The last hope of running through the hostile fleet unperceived had
now vanished. There was nothing for it but to go ahead full-speed,
and trust to the chances of a running fight to get clear. With a view
of finding out t