"Wait for the battleships, I imagine," said Armitage. "We don't really torpedo them," he added. "The object is to get as close as possible without being observed. They try to locate us with searchlights. As soon as they see us they put the light on us and fire a red star. After that star is fired the discovered boat must steam full speed for the quarry for one minute and then fire a green star and turn on her lights. The distance from the battleship to the boat is measured and if we are within torpedo range, two thousand yards, the torpedo boat wins. If the distance is greater, we are technically out of action--the battleship wins." "How interesting!" Anne gazed at Armitage admiringly. "And that is what you would do in real warfare then--rush into the very face of the battleship's firing in the effort to blow her up?" "About that," smiled Armitage. "But what a risk! You must steam through a perfect hail of bullets, with chances of striking with your torpedo largely against you. And even if you do strike you are liable to pay the price with your lives. Am I not right?" "These pirates of the flotilla," laughed Jack, "do not think of the price. They 're in the Navy to think of other things." "And is that the spirit of the American Navy?" "Of course," Armitage looked at her curiously. "Why not?" Anne laughed and shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, I don't know. I know something of the British and French Navies, but patriotism--the sort of spirit you speak of--has always appeared to me such an abstract thing as regards America. It's because, I suppose, I have never known anything about it, because I have been more or less of an expatriate all my life." Jack had been watching a display of Ardois lights from the _Jefferson's_ mast. He turned away, but spoke over his shoulder. "Don't be that, Miss Wellington, for you have proved to me that a girl or a child, reared as you have been, can be American in every instinct and action. I had never believed that." He hurried away to the bridge rail and Anne's arm turned red under the impress of Sara's fingers. In compliance with the _Jefferson's_ signals, the engines of the flotilla began to throb and the boats turned to the eastward. A cry came from the _D'Estang's_ lookout. Anne and Sara leaned forward and saw that a blundering sailing vessel--her dark sails a blotch against the sky, her hull invisible--was careening just ahead. She had no lights, and curses on the heads of coastwise skippers who take risks and place other vessels in jeopardy merely to save oil, swept through the flotilla like ether waves. Armitage let a good Anglo-Saxon objurgation slip from his tongue as he turned toward the yeoman. "Half speed!" "Half speed, sir," answered the yeoman as he tugged at the engine room telegraph.