"I think not. He was exceedingly anxious to be buried at his home near Chester. It isn't a pleasant thing to talk about," Jocelyn went on, "but they brought his coffin on board with him. It's lying in the companionway now, covered over with a rug." She shivered. "It's a horrible day altogether," she declared, looking out into the seemingly endless banks of mist. "Entirely my opinion, Miss Beverley," a voice said in her ear. "I find it most depressing--and unhealthy. And listen.--Do you hear that?" They all listened intently. Again they could hear the hooting of a steamer in the distance. "Between ourselves," Crawshay went on confidentially, "the captain seems to me rather worried. That steamer has been following us for hours. She is evidently waiting for the fog to lift, to see who we are." "How does she know about us?" Katharine asked. "We haven't blown our hooter once." "We don't need to," was the fractious reply. "That's where we are being over-careful. She can hear our engines distinctly." "Who does the captain think she is, then?" Crawshay's voice was dropped to a mysterious pitch, but though he leaned towards the girl, his eyes were fixed upon her companion. "He doesn't go as far as to express a definite opinion, but he thinks that it might be that German raider--the _Blucher_, isn't it? She can steal about quite safely in the fog, and she can tell by the beat of the engines whether she is near a man-of-war or not." Not a muscle of Jocelyn's face twitched, but there was a momentary gleam in his eyes of which Crawshay took swift note. He glanced aft to where the two seamen were standing by the side of their guns. "If it really is the German raider," he remarked, "they might as well fire off a popgun as that thing. She is supposed to be armed with four six-inch guns and two torpedo tubes." Crawshay nodded. "So I told the captain. We might have a go at a submarine, but the raider would sink us in two minutes if we tried to tackle her. What a beastly voyage this is!" he went on, in a depressed tone. "I can't get over the fact that I risked my life to get on board, too." Jocelyn Thew, with a little word of excuse, had swung around and disappeared. Katharine looked at her companion curiously. "Do you believe that it really is the raider, Mr. Crawshay?" she enquired. He hesitated. In Jocelyn's absence his manner seemed to undergo some subtle change, his tone to become crisper and less querulous. "We had some reason to hope," he said cautiously, "that she was on a different course. It is just possible, however, that in changing it she might have struck this bank of fog and preferred to hang about for a time." "What will happen if she finds us?" "That depends entirely upon circumstances." "I have an idea," Katharine continued, "that you know more about this matter than you feel inclined to divulge." "Perhaps," he admitted. "Nowadays, every one has to learn discretion."