The forty winks I managed to snatch as a result of following up the sleeping part of that recommendation stood me in good stead in the times ahead. It took no little composing to doze off even as it was, and it was the sharp bang my head got from the siderail of my bunk that put a period to the nap I did get. The rolling had increased enormously, and though it was apparent we were not yet bucking into it, the swishing of the water on the forecastle overhead indicated that there had been enough alteration of course to bring the seas--on one leg of the zigzags at least--well forward of the beam. I climbed out, pulled on my weather-proof suit and sea-boots, and clambered up to the bridge. There were still a couple of hours to go before dark, and in the diffused light of a bright bank of sunset clouds the gay dazzle colours of all the ships showed up brilliantly as they ploughed the whitecap-plumed surface of a sea which now stretched unbrokenly to the westward horizon. There was a world of power behind the belligerent bulk of swells which had been gathering force under the urge of a west-nor'-west wind that had chased them all the way from Labrador, and the destroyers, teetering quarteringly along their foam-crested tops, were rolling drunkenly and yawing viciously ahead of jagged wakes. Still driving on at express speed, however, they continued to maintain perfect formation on the swiftly steaming _Lymptania_. The latter, apparently as steady as though "chocked up" in a dry-dock, drove serenely on in great swinging zigzags. The captain came up from the chart-room and took a long look around. "It's just about as I expected," he said, shaking his head dubiously. "It isn't so rough but what a submarine might stage an attack if her skipper had the nerve; and it's a darn sight too rough for destroyers to screen the _Lymptania_ with her holding to anything like full speed. It's all up now to _what_ speed she will try to hold us to." "But what's the matter with this?" I protested. "We're still hitting the high places for speed, and, while I wouldn't call this exactly comfortable, we still seem to be making pretty good weather of it." The captain smiled indulgently. "You're right," he said, "as far as you go. We are indeed hitting the high places, but--the high places haven't started hitting us yet. Wait just about five or ten minutes," he added, turning his glasses to where the great liner, silhouetted for the moment against the sunset clouds, ploughed along on our port beam, "and you'll see the difference. Ah!" this as he steadied his glasses on where the boiling wake of the _Lymptania_, beginning to bend away in a sharp curve indicating a considerable alteration of course. "There she goes now. Hold tight!"