There was something almost awesome in the emptiness of the great ship, in the lifelessness of the decks, in the miles of blinded ports. The heads of a few sailors "snugging down" on the forecastle, a knot of officers at the end of the bridge, and two stewardesses in white uniforms leaning over the rail of one of the upper decks--that was all there was visible of human life on a ship which a few days before had been packed to the funnels with its thousands of American soldiers. A lanky destroyer gunner lounging by a ladder, described her exactly when he said to one of his mates: "Gee, but ain't she the lonesome one!" The captain of the _Zip_ turned his glasses back to cover the little group of officers on the liner's bridge. "There's the skipper," he said presently. "I only hope he's well ahead of the game on the sleeps, for I wouldn't mind betting that he won't be leaving that bridge for a cup of coffee for some time. It's going to be an anxious interval for him--very anxious. It's quite beyond calculation, the value to the Allies at this moment of a ship of the size and speed of the _Lymptania_, and her skipper must know from what has happened the last week, that the Huns are all out to bag her this time, and he can hardly be able to extract any too much comfort out of the fact that it's about a hundred to one that we'll bag the Fritz that tries it--either before or after the event. Yes, it will be an anxious time for him--but," a grimly wry smile coming to his face as he turned his eyes to the opening seaward horizon, "even so, it'll be nothing to the time we're in for in the _Zip_ and all the rest of the escort. _He'll_ be able to sleep if he happens to take a notion to; _we_ won't, at least, not during the time we've got _her_ to shepherd. Again, he's only got the _chance_ of being hit by a torpedo to worry about; we've got the _certainty_ of being hit by head-seas that have as much kick in them to a driven destroyer as a tin-fish full of gun-cotton. Unless the weather gets either a good deal better or a shade worse, we're sure up against the real thing this time.