We could thus, at any rate, say that we had our lamps burning, and throw the blame of their condition upon the lamp-trimmer. In the rest of the ship all lights were carefully screened. Hour after hour of anxious waiting went by--another half-hour, another quarter, and we shall have Lindesnaes right abeam. Shall we get through unobserved? We were spared the trouble of answering that question. Suddenly there was a flash to northward, and directly over the horizon there appeared one after another, one, two, three, four searchlights, making criss-cross patterns with their beams. Time after time they grazed us. When one of them suddenly rested a moment on us, we thought we were seen, but no; for a few seconds later it released us again and illuminated the water astern of us. Then another came sweeping round, and yet another. This merry game went on for perhaps five minutes, but that brief span seemed to us like an eternity, for every moment we expected a shot across our bows as a gentle hint to us to stop. But nothing happened. It was only when the beams began to concentrate on a spot some distance to the east of us, and then climbed up into the heavens that we breathed freely once more. After that I extinguished my lights again, and steered north-west for the open sea. From that time forward, a point which I always took into consideration in laying my courses was that I should always be at least a day's steaming distant from the famous Kirkwall Harbour, to which the English sent in all suspicious ships. I counted that if we should be caught and a prize crew put on board of us, within the twenty-four hours we could find ways and means of dealing with our uninvited guests, and recapturing our ship. The next day passed without any greater excitements than those provided by an encounter with a couple of suspicious-looking Dutch fishing-boats, and a Norwegian steamer. The latter evidently did not fancy the looks of her fellow-countryman, for she took to her heels, belching forth volumes of the blackest smoke that her furnaces could produce, and only resumed her course after giving us a very wide berth. We found it rather an agreeable interlude to figure as hunter instead of quarry. CHAPTER X SOME EXCITEMENTS We were now four days out, and the most we had seen of the 'Grand Fleet' of the English was a couple of searchlights. I had been on the bridge all night, and had turned in for a short rest, when I was awakened by a loud tramping and shouting on deck. 'Smoke cloud on the port beam!' What could that be? Well, of course, it might be a trader, but it was just as likely to be a warship, for we were now approaching the Shetland cordon.