The destroyer was running down a westerly course near enough to the equatorial regions to cause every one to feel the languor that usually affects the northern-born in southern climes. The boys lolled around the decks, and found drill and stations hard tasks indeed. Everybody said: “Is it hot enough for you?” And with the permission of the executive officer more than half the crew slept on deck instead of below in their hammocks. During a part of the afternoon watch the engines of the destroyer were stopped, a life-raft was lowered on the shady side of the ship, and the boys in squads were allowed to bathe, the quartermaster’s boat with two sharpshooters in it, lying off a few yards on the watch for sharks. The _Colodia_ had an objective point, however, toward which she was heading without much loss of time. Hour after hour she steamed at racing speed and through an ocean that seemed to be utterly deserted by other craft. In those wartimes the lanes of steam shipping, and sailing craft as well, had been changed. Ships sometimes sailed far off their usual course to reach in safety a port, the track to which was watched by the German underseas boats. The _Colodia_ would ordinarily have passed half a hundred ships on this course which she followed toward the American shores. Cruising the seas, whether for pleasure, profit, or on war bent, is a very different thing nowadays from formerly. Practically this change has been brought about by a young Italian who had a vision. No longer does a ship go blindly on her course, unable to learn who may be her neighbor, deaf to what the world ashore is doing as long as she remains out of port. The wireless telegraph has made this change. The radio furnishes all the gossip of sea and land. Even in wartime the news out of the air puts those at sea in touch with their fellowmen. All day long, and through the night as well, the radio force on the _Colodia_ might listen to the chatter of the operators on land and sea. Unnecessary conversation between operators is frowned upon; but who is going to “listen in” on a couple of thousand miles of wireless and report private conversations between working radio men? On the _Colodia_ a man was at the instrument practically every minute, day or night. Commercial messages, weather warnings, code sendings of three or four Governments, the heavy soundwaves from Nauem, the German naval headquarters, flashes from ship to ship--all this grist passed through the wireless mill of the destroyer. All the time, too, they were seeking news of the _Sea Pigeon_, the German raider, which the _Colodia_ had been sent out particularly to find. Of course, the finish of the submarine One Thousand and One had been reported to the naval base, and an emphatic, “Well done!” had been returned. But the sinking of the submarine, after all, was not the main issue.