Two or three times in the course of the morning the look-out's shout of "Sail!" bearing this way or that, brought those in sound of it to their feet in the expectation that it would be followed by the welcome clanging of the alarm bell; and once or twice the wireless picked up the S.O.S.--they do not send it out that way now, but these letters are still the common term in use to describe the call of a ship in distress--of a steamer that had been torpedoed. But the sails turned out to be friends in every case, while both of the ships reported sinking were too far away for us to be of any use to them. Early in the afternoon a suspiciously cruising craft, which proved presently to be a friend, got a high-explosive shell under her nose as a consequence of her deliberation in revealing that fact. The smartness with which the men tumbled to quarters, and the almost uncanny speed with which the forecastle gun was served, boded well for developments in case the real thing turned up. "Do you always fire a blank across their bows when you don't quite like the look of 'em?" I asked the captain innocently, as he gazed dejectedly through his glass at certain unmistakable evidences proving that he had been cheated of his quarry. "Blank!" indignation and half the look that sits on the face of a terrier who discovers that he has cornered his own family's "Tabby" instead of the neighbour's "Tom"; "blank!--did you ever see a blank 'X-point-X' that threw up a spout as high as a masthead, and all black with smoke? That was the worst punisher we have in our lockers; and, what's more, it was meant to be a hit. And the next one would have been," he added. "You can't afford to waste any time where five or ten seconds may make all the difference between bagging and losing a Hun." "But how about bagging something that isn't a Hun?" I protested. "I told you, I think, that I had arranged to go out next week on patrol in one of the American submarines; but after what I've just seen----" "The burden of proof is up to the craft under suspicion," cut in the captain, "and they ought to have no trouble in supplying it if they have their wits about them." Then, with a grin, "But if you're really going out on submarine patrol next week, why--I'll promise to look twice before turning loose one of those--those 'blanks.'" How he kept his word is another story.