A queer business! We trim the possibilities in our mind. It is now nearly dark. As we go, we should make Nantucket Lightship at daybreak; our usual landfall on the voyage. There is not much to work on. 'A message being sent, and some one making unusual efforts to prevent receipt.' A raider? It is now some months since _Kronprinz Wilhelm_ was driven into Norfolk; she cannot surely, have escaped internment. _Karlsruhe?_ Nothing has been heard of her for a long term. A submarine? Perhaps _Deutschland_, with his torpedo-tubes refitted and a gun mounted? He knows the way; he could carry oil enough to reach the coast, do a strafe, and sneak into a port for internment. . . . Figuring on the chart, measuring distance and course and speed, it comes to us that enemy action would best succeed off Nantucket or the Virginia Capes. We resolve to cut in between the two, to make the land below Atlantic City, and take advantage of territorial waters. If there is no serious intention behind the jamming of the wireless, there will be no great harm done--we shall only lose ten hours on the passage; if a raider is out, we shall, at least, be well off the expected route. We pass the orders. A quiet night. We are steering into the afterglow of a brilliant sunset. The mast and rigging stand out in clear black outline against lingering daylight as we swing south four points. The look-out aloft turns from his post and scans the wake curving to our sheer; anon, he wonders at the coming of a mate to share his watch. Passengers, on a stroll, note unusual movement about the boat-deck, where the hands are swinging out lifeboats and clearing the gear. As the carpenter and his mates go the rounds, screwing blinds to the ports and darkening ship, other passengers hurry up from below and join the groups on deck; an excitement is quickly evident. They had thought all danger over when, in thirty degrees west, we allowed them to discard the cumbersome life-jackets that they had worn since leaving the Mersey. And now--almost on the threshold of security and firm land--again the enervating restrictions and routine, the sinister preparations, the atmosphere of sudden danger. Rumours and alarms fly from lip to lip; we deem it best to publish that the wireless has heard the twitter of a strange bird.