st ship.

The Coldwater was fully equipped for two months' patrolling--the
ordinary length of assignment to this service--and a month had already
passed, its monotony entirely unrelieved by sight of another craft,
when the first of our misfortunes befell.

We had been riding out a storm at an altitude of about three thousand
feet. All night we had hovered above the tossing billows of the
moonlight clouds. The detonation of the thunder and the glare of
lightning through an occasional rift in the vaporous wall proclaimed
the continued fury of the tempest upon the surface of the sea; but we,
far above it all, rode in comparative ease upon the upper gale. With
the coming of dawn the clouds beneath us became a glorious sea of gold
and silver, soft and beautiful; but they could not deceive us as to the
blackness and the terrors of the storm-lashed ocean which they hid.

I was at breakfast when my chief engineer entered and saluted. His
face was grave, and I thought he was even a trifle paler than usual.

"Well?" I asked.

He drew the back of his forefinger nervously across his brow in a
gesture that was habitual with him in moments of mental stress.

"The gravitation-screen generators, sir," he said. "Number one went to
the bad about an hour and a half ago. We have been working upon it
steadily since; but I have to report, sir, that it is beyond repair."

"Number two will keep us supplied," I answered. "In the meantime we
will send a wireless for relief."

"But that is the trouble, sir," he went on. "Number two has stopped.
I knew it would come, sir. I made a report on these generators three
years ago. I advised then that they both be scrapped. Their principle
is entirely wrong. They're done for." And, with a grim smile, "I
shall at least have the satisfaction of knowing my report was accurate."

"Have we sufficient reserve screen to permit us to make land, or, at
least, meet our relief halfway?" I asked.

"No, sir," he replied gravely; "we are sinking now."

"Have you anything further to report?" I asked.

"No, sir," he said.

"Very good," I replied; and, as I dismissed him, I rang for my wireless
operator. When he appeared, I gave him a message to the secretary of
the navy, to whom all vessels in service on thirty and one hundred
seventy-five report direct. I explained our predicament, and stated
that with what screening force remained I should continue in the air,
making as rapid headway towar