“I do not think they will sink us, Timothy.” “God be good to me. I’m no better than a coward this night. What was it I said?” “That you were quite of my opinion, Timothy.” We laughed together, and then fell to silence. Fitfully now in the dark heavens there could be seen the glimmer of the searchlight’s open lantern. The sea about us was a sea of night, very black and awesome and still. We were a thing of darkness, rushing onward with spinning bows and throbbing turbines and furnaces at a white heat—a stealthy enemy creeping upon our prey through the immense shadows which darkened the face of the resting waters. No man aboard disguised from himself the risk we were taking. Let the Diamond Ship catch us in the path of her mighty beam of radiant light, and we were instantly discovered. A single shell from her modern guns would destroy us utterly. There could be no greater triumph for the Jew than that. We alone carried the whole story of his secret. What, then, would he not give to destroy us? So we crept on, mile by mile. Every eye aboard the _White Wings_ watched that resting searchlight as though it had been endowed with telepathic powers and would of itself warn the rogue’s crew. I don’t think we believed for an instant in the good fortune which followed us. It seemed incredible that they should not keep a better look-out—and yet the fact so stands. The resting beam of light in the sky was our goal. We drew upon it moment by moment as to some gate of destiny which should tell a story fruitful beyond any we had heard. And still the Diamond Ship did not awake. I heard Captain Larry give an order down the tube, and realised that the yacht had come to a stand. We were then but half a mile from the great vessel herself, and could in reason dare to draw no nearer. The rest lay with the whim of the night. We knew not, could not imagine the strange fortune which awaited us. CHAPTER XXII. THE CRIMSON ROCKET. _Joan Fordibras is Discovered on the Diamond Ship._ You are to imagine a still sea and a great four-masted sailing ship drifting upon it at the hazard of a summer breeze. The night is intensely dark, and the sky gives veins of mackerel cloud upon a field of slaty blue. Far away, a ring of silver iridescence, low down upon an open horizon, suggests that great inverted bowl within which all ships are ever prisoned from the first day of their sailing to the last. The monster vessel herself is brilliantly lighted from stem to stern. Faintly over the water there comes to us a sound of bibulous song and hilarity. My quick ear catches the note of a piccolo, and upon that of a man’s voice singing not untunefully. I say that there is no discipline whatever upon such a deck; no thought of danger, no fear of discovery. The pillar of light has become a halting mockery. Much is to be dared, much to be won upon such a night.