Although Barcroft felt acute disappointment at finding that the vessels had left the rendezvous, he realised that no blame could be attached to the officers responsible for the order to return. Had he flown straight back he might have been in time, but it was the bombing of the battleship that had delayed him. "It's jolly well worth it," he soliloquised. "But we look like being in the cart again. I begin to think that Kirkwood is a bit of a Jonah, although hitherto he's managed to turn up safely. Hope his luck--and mine--will still hold good." A motionless blade of the propeller, coming across his field of vision, betokened the unpleasant fact that the motor had refused duty. Almost imperturbably Billy held on to the joy-stick, guiding the seaplane on her long seaward glide. The A.P., thinking that something had befallen his chum, leant over the curved deck of the chassis and touched his shoulder. Barcroft smiled in reply and pointed to the empty petrol-tank--a smile that restored his companion's confidence. Nevertheless the vol plane was a dangerous one. The reduction of the wing-spread, bad enough when the machine was driving furiously through the air, caused the seaplane to slip badly while solely under the attraction of gravity. Should a "slip" occur just before the floats took the water the chance of a fatal capsize were almost a dead certainty. Realising such a possibility the A.P., who had already unbuckled his waist-strap, kept on the alert, ready at the first sign of a disaster to hack through his companion's belt with a keen knife. Even then he wondered what was the use? With no help in sight their fruitless struggle for life would only be unnecessarily prolonged. Then came the opposing thought: while there's life there's hope, and never say die till you're dead. Again the volplaning craft side-slipped. Barcroft was only just in time to regain control, and making a faultless "landing," brought his command to an aerial rest upon the surface. It could not be termed other than an aerial rest, for the simple reason that the waterborne fabric was rolling and pitching in the short steep seas that are to be met with off the flat Frisian shore. "For one thing the day is long," thought Billy as he stood upright upon the deck of the swaying chassis and, supporting himself by one of the struts, looked fixedly in the direction of the pursuing torpedo-boats. They were no longer visible, the difference in altitude having put them below the horizon, but the ominous clouds of smoke told the flight-sub that the Huns were still persisting in their search. It was just possible, however, that they might pass some miles to windward and not sight the inconspicuous disabled seaplane in that waste of waters.