deeds
which would have appalled the mailed monsters of chivalry; they regard
the other sex as being created solely for their use in port; they love
life dearly, but they leave the saving of it, like the heroes of old,
to the gods.

One has only to listen (in the galley) to their nonchalantly narrated
tales of mystery and horror to realize the truth of that argument. A
steady monotone is the key of their telling, their voices rising only
to hammer home some particularly horrific detail. Sometimes, in the
clangour of the engine-room, they will relate perilous misadventures
at sea, or ludicrous entanglements in sunny southern ports. But they
never waste breath in elaboration or "atmosphere." They leave that to
the nervous listener. They know nothing of the artistic values of
their virile tales. They do not know they are only carrying on the
tradition of the men of all time since Homer. They fling you the
fine gold of their own lives, and wallow in the tittle-tattle of
lady-novelists and _Reynolds's_. They seethe with admiration for
Captain Kettle's amazing manoeuvres, while the shipping offices are
papered with lists of those who are too indolent or too forgetful to
claim their service medals from the Government.

VIII

I remember, in the grey dawn one day last week, my relief sang in my
ear as he wiped his hands after "feeling round," "_Deutschland's_
astern, goin' like fury." "Sure?" I asked. "Only boat with four
funnels in the line," he said. Four funnels! I raced up and aft, and
saw her. Some three miles astern going westward, going grandly. From
each of her enormous funnels belched vast clouds of black smoke till
she looked like some Yorkshire township afloat. Through glasses I
could see the dome of the immense dining saloon, and the myriad
port-holes in her wall-like side. I could see her moving fast, though
so far away. As the head sea caught the massive bows, she never
waited. Her 35,000 h.p. drove her crashing through them, and they
broke high in air in clouds of foam. Splendid! I thought. But my heart
was with those "below." Think of the toil! Six or seven hundred tons
of coal per day is flung into her dozens of furnaces, against our
twenty-five tons. Think of the twenty-odd engineers who scarcely see
their bunks from the Elbe to the Hudson. And, in that cool, grey,
pearly dawn, think of those passengers sleeping in their palatial
state-rooms, with never a thought of the slaves who drive that
monstr