"Signal to Southampton," I ordered, "and get a couple of their fastest boats here at once. They may be useful in an emergency, and it will look as if we are doing something. Ready for action, of course, and with full service ammunition and bombs. Sir Joshua may have a fit if he likes, but there is nothing to be done until we know more--unless you can suggest anything?" The little man shook his head. He was keen as a terrier, of course, and he had already acted with great promptitude and wisdom. Just then an orderly came out on to the terrace and handed me a signal. I read it out to Lashmar: "Air-yacht _May Flower_ just passed St. Mary's doing ninety knots." It was from our most westerly A.P. station on Tresco in the Scillies. Lashmar made a rough calculation: "Twenty-five miles west-sou'-west of Land's End, add another seventy--she'll be here just under the hour, sir." "Then I tell you what, Mr. Lashmar, go and meet her and escort her home. Not a living soul must speak to Captain Pring before I do--not even Sir Joshua or any of the White Star people. Give that as my orders when you meet the yacht. But put it very politely to Mr. Van Adams--my compliments and that sort of thing. He's the sort of person who could buy the goodwill of the universe for ready money. Make your escort appear a compliment from the Government!" Lashmar never wasted words. He understood exactly, saluted, and hurried to the electric railway, which ran down like a chute into the sea-drome far below. I lit a cigarette and watched, and it was a sight worth watching. Beyond, stretched the largest sea-drome in Great Britain, a harbour within a harbour, surrounded by massive concrete walls. In the roughest weather, when even within the distant breakwater the Sound is turbulent, the sea-drome is calm as a duck-pond. Now it was like a sheet of polished silver, and resting on their great floats at their moorings were three gigantic air-liners, with electric launches and motor-boats plying between them and the landing-stages. Right in the centre was the splendid _Atlantis_, graceful as a swan, by which Connie was to leave for the States in a few hours. She was surrounded by a swarm of boats no bigger than water-beetles from where I stood. A bell rang, there was a rumbling sound, and from a tunnel just beneath me the car, with Lashmar in it, shot down to the water like a stone running down a house roof. As the car dwindled to a punt, a match-box, and finally a postage stamp, I heard the creak and swish of the semaphore behind me on the roof of the station. On the far side of the sea-drome was our Patrol Ship No. 1, stream-line fusilage, with the familiar red, white and blue line, snow-white planes, guns fore and aft, and twin propellers of phosphor bronze winking white-hot in the afternoon sun.