By this time they had gotten to the roof, where they found Black, Stanton, and James eagerly awaiting them. “Where is Fred?” asked Black, noting his absence as the other two stepped out to join them. “Dead by God!” Lawrence started again to become hysterical. “That devil, Count von Hemelstein, killed him!” “Shut up, Lawrence!” broke in Edestone sharply. “Cut out that swearing and get to work. We have no time to lose.” In the same quick, authoritative tone, he issued his orders to the others, as they stood staring at the news, each in his different way showing his breeding. Black was commencing to whine; Stanton with a scowl of rage was in sympathy with Lawrence; while James, demonstrating his years of training, stood statue-like with hand behind his back, leaning forward as if to catch his master’s next order, and carry it out with perfect decorum. “Have you locked the door at the foot of the stairs? Ah! That is good!” he exclaimed, as he saw that they had barricaded the door of the bulkhead by putting a piece of timber between it and the coping around one of the skylights. It had grown quite dark in the interval, but in the glare of the great searchlights which were playing upon her he could plainly see above him the Little Peace Maker which had swung into a position directly over the Embassy, and was now slowly descending. She was not over a thousand feet above the roof as she hung there, three of her great searchlights bearing steadily on three different points in the city, and giving to her the aspect of an enormous spyglass standing on its gigantic tripod, and by its own weight forcing the feet of the tripod into the soft earth, as the ship slowly settled. Shrapnel shells were exploding all about her, and at times she was almost entirely enveloped in smoke. Between the reports of the heavier artillery could be heard the staccato spatter of bullets on her iron sides as the machine-guns sprayed her from end to end. Now and then one of the gunners would reach one of her searchlights, and as the ray was extinguished, one almost expected to see her topple in the direction of her broken support, but in each case it was quickly replaced by another, and she continued to drop nearer and nearer to the earth. Excepting for the searchlights there was no sign of life on board. Silently and without response of any kind, she came. But as she approached nearer, and the angle of the German guns was still further reduced, although they must already have been doing frightful damage in all parts of the city, the shrapnel and small bullets could be heard screaming over the heads of the little party on the roof. “It is getting pretty hot here, and we had better lie down,” Edestone said. But the words were hardly out of his mouth before Stanton fell with a bullet in his head, and James sat down, probably more abruptly than he had ever done anything before in all his life.