She dreamed that night about being torpedoed; in the dream, the boat was the _Ribot_; and upon the vessel there were--as almost always there are in dreams--a perfectly impossible company. Besides those who actually were on board, there were Sam Hilton and Lieutenant George Byrne and “Aunt Emilie” and Aunt Cynthia Gifford Grange and the woman in gray and a great many others--so many, indeed, that there were not boats enough on the _Ribot_ to take off all the company as the ship sank. So Gerry Hull, after putting Lady Agnes in a boat and kissing her good-bye, himself stepped back to go down with the ship; and so, when all the boats were gone, he found Ruth beside him; for she had known that he would not try to save himself and she had hidden to stay with him. His arms were about her as the water rose to them and--she awoke. Their U-boat really came; but with results disconcertingly different. January, 1918--if you can remember clearly back to days so strange and distant--was a month when America was sending across men by tens rather than by hundreds of thousands and convoying them very, very carefully; there were not so many destroyers as soon there were; the U-boats had not yet raided far out into the Atlantic--so fast and well-armed ships like the _Ribot_, which were not transports, were allowed to proceed a certain part of the way across unconvoyed, keeping merely to certain “lanes” on courses prescribed by wireless. The _Ribot_, Ruth knew, was on one of these lanes and soon would be “picked up” by the destroyers and shepherded by them into a convoy for passage through the zone of greatest danger. In fact, Ruth and Milicent Wetherell, who also had awakened early upon this particular morning, were looking out of their port over a gray and misty sea to discover whether they might have been picked up during the night and now were in a convoy. But they saw no sign of any other vessel, though the mist, which was patchy and floating low, let them look a mile or more away. There was no smoke in sight--nothing but gray clouds and the frayed fog and the sea swelling oilily up and slipping down against the side of the ship. Then, about a hundred yards away from the side and rather far forward, a spout of spray squirted suddenly straight up into the air. It showered over toward the ship and splashed down. “That’s a shot,” Ruth said, “at us.” “Where’s the U-boat?” Milicent asked her; and they both pressed closer to the port to look out. They had heard no sound of the gun, or they did not distinguish it from the noises of the ship. Ruth was shaking with excitement; she could feel Milicent shaking too. Another spout of spray, still forward but a good deal closer, spurted up; and this time they heard--or thought they heard--the sound of the gun which had fired that shell at them. The roar of their own guns--one forward and one aft--buffeted them violently. “We’re fighting!” Ruth cried. “Can you see anything?” Milicent demanded.