‘We’ve lost the game,’ said one man. ‘First come first served. _That_ shows it,’ and with this dark saying I was forced to be content. Then the Flag removed herself, her sixty signalmen, her four-deep strings of signals, and her grim semaphore. Truly was it written: _‘Every day brings a ship_, _Every ship brings a word_, _Well for him who has no fear_ _Looking seaward, well assured_ _That the word the vessel brings_ _Is the word that he would hear.’_ Anon the cruisers popped over the horizon, led by the _Powerful_—all save one—and the _Powerful_ wished to know where that one had gone. Now the rendezvous given us by the _Powerful_ could have been read in two ways. We all knew how the mistake had arisen, and, with one exception, had all repaired to the place which our leader had in her massive mind. But there was no ship, of course, that could stand up to and gently rebuke the _Powerful_ save her sister ship the _Terrible_, who signalled politely: ‘I suppose the —— is waiting at rendezvous signalled by you?’ To this the _Powerful_ stiffly, with many flags: ‘When ships have any doubt about signal, officers should reply: Not understood!’ The _Terrible_, more politely than ever: ‘Your signal perfectly understood,’ meaning thereby, ‘My friend, you made a mistake, and you jolly well know it.’ We small craft stood back and sniggered while this chaff flew between the two mammoths. The thing must have weighed on the _Powerful’s_ mind, for late that evening, as we were going home, she woke up and began talking about it in flashes from the mast-head, to the effect that when signals were obviously wrong ships should do something or other laid down in the Regulations. ASTONISHING THE CROWDED CHANNEL TRAFFIC But really it made no difference. The missing cruiser cast up presently with one funnel blistered and a windsail rigged aft, which gave her a false air of being hurried and hot; and home we cruisers all went to Portland, past the Wolf and the toothed edges of the Scillies, astonishing the crowded Channel traffic—sometimes a Jersey potato-ketch full of curiosity; or a full-rigged trader of the deep sea, bound for one or other of the Capes; a Norwegian, Dane, German, or Frenchman; and now and again a white-sided, brass bejewelled yacht. For a few minutes every funnel was in line. Then one saw the _Powerful_ pulling out for a sailing ship, and blotting half the horizon with her hull. Then a second-class cruiser would flicker from the line to starboard, all spangled with her mast-head, her speed, helm, and sailing-lights as the pale glimmer of a fishing-smack’s lantern crawled out astern of her: And now it was our turn to give way. That was a Royal progress. No blind man’s bluff off the Lizard or dreary game of hunt-the-Needles such as the liners play, but through the heavenly clear night the leisurely, rolling slow-march of the overlords of all the seas. OURS BY RIGHT OF BIRTH