The year stood at the threshold of the spring; a promise of warmth lay in the climbing sun; on land one might have heard the first songs of the birds. At sea, the mists of winter were lifting from the waters, and the sun, for many months shrunk and silver pale, shone hard and golden bright. A fresh, clear wind was blowing from the west, driving ahead of it a multitude of low foam-streaked waves. There was not a sign of life to be seen anywhere on the vast disk of the sea, not a trail, not a smudge of smoke on the horizon's circle, not even a solitary gull or diver. The destroyer, dwarfed by her world, ran up and down the square she had been chosen to guard. She had the air of performing a casual evolution. There was never anything to be found in this particular square. It lay beyond the great highways; even the sight of a coaster was there something of a rarity. Periscopes were never reported from that area, never had been reported, and probably never would be. Caressed by the sun, enveloped in the serenity of the day as in a mantle, the destroyer went back and forth on her patrol. The emergence of the periscope a quarter of a mile ahead off the starboard bow had in it something so unattended that the incident had a character of abnormality ... much as if a familiar hill should suddenly turn into a volcano. It is greatly to the honour of the ship's discipline, that those aboard were not staled by months of unfruitful vigil, and acted as swiftly as if the destruction of a submarine were matter of daily practice. There it lay, going steadily along about two hundred yards away, ... a simple, most unromantic black rod rising two feet or so above the waves. A white furrow like a kind of comet's tail, streamed behind it, forever widening at the end. Later on, they asked themselves what the submarine could possibly have been doing. Seeking a quiet place to come up to breathe, to effect repairs, to send out a hurried wireless message? It might have been a rendezvous between the two vessels. One felt that the gods had brought to pass there no careless drama, but a tragedy long meditated and skillfully prepared. The morning sun watched, a casual spectator, the duel between the two engines of violence.