r. Its purport was comparatively unimportant,
something about oil-fuel on arrival in harbour.

* * * * *

But finding out the meaning of those flag signals which he did not know
by heart--and he knew most of them--was only a tithe of his duty. He
was equally expert at taking in a message spelt out by the whirling
arms of a semaphore, arms which waved so rapidly, and whose giddy
gyrations were so often well-nigh invisible against a bad background,
that his performance savoured of the miraculous. At night, too, he was
just as good, for then the frenzied winking of a dim light would convey
its meaning just the same. It was a point of honour with him always to
get a signal correctly the first time it was made. I never saw him ask
for a repetition.

Only twice did I know him to laugh on the bridge, and the first time
that occurred was when, through a series of circumstances which need
not be entered into here, we nearly came into contact with the next
ahead. Such things do happen.

Then it was that the next ahead--he was several years senior to us and
a humorist--turned in his wrath and quoted the Bible. "Your
attention," his semaphore said, "is drawn to the Gospel according to
St. Matthew, chapter 16, verse 23."

We sent for the Bible, looked up the reference, and read: "But he
turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an
offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but
those that be of men."

The quotation was apt and the Leading Signalman's eyes twinkled. Then
I noticed his mouth expanding into a grin, and presently he laughed, a
short, explosive sort of laugh rather like the bark of a dog.

But we had our revenge a week later, when our next ahead--he was our
friend as well as our senior--nearly collided with a buoy at the
entrance to a certain harbour.

"What about the Book of Proverbs?" our semaphore asked. "Chapter 22,
verse 28."

"Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set," he must
have read. I cannot remember the reply, but the Leading Signalman had
laughed once more.

* * * * *

But "Bunting" will never smile again. He went down with his ship on
May 31, 1916. The North Sea is his grave and the curling whitecap his
tombstone. His epitaph may be written across the sky in a trail of
smoke from some passing steamer.

THE LOST SHEEP

The glass had gone down with a thump d