"Well, we're still carrying on. Things are still going pretty much O.K., sir," proffered the major, squinting into the East--the cold, red East, infinitely vast, empty, ripe with possibilities. "A good start! Close to a thousand miles we've made; engines running to a hair; men all fitting into the jobs like clockwork. Everything all right to a dot, eh?" The Master nodded silently, keeping dark eyes fixed on the horizon of cloud-rack. Above, the last faint prickings of stars were fading. The moon had paled to a ghostly circle. Shuddering, _Nissr_ fled, with vapory horizons seemingly on her own level so that she appeared at the bottom of an infinite bowl. Bohannan, feeling need of speech, tried to be casual as he added: "I don't feel sleepy. Do you? Seems like I'd never want to sleep again. Faith, this _is_ living! You've got us all enthused. And your idea of putting every man-jack in uniform was bully! Nothing like uniforms--even a jumble of different kinds, like ours--to cement men together and give them the _esprit de corps._ If we go through as we've begun--" The Master interrupted him with a cold glance of annoyance. The Celt's exuberance jarred on his soul. Since the affair with "Captain Alden," the Master's nerves had gone a little raw. Bohannan rallied bravely. "Of course," he went on, "it was unfortunate about that New Zealand chap going West. He looked like a right good fellow. But, well--_c'est la guerre!_ And I know he wouldn't have chosen a finer grave than the bottom of the Atlantic, where he's sleeping now. "By the way, how did Alden come out? Much hurt, was he? I know, of course, he didn't go back to the sick-bay. So he couldn't have been badly wounded, or he would be--" "The Arabs have a saying, my dear fellow," dryly answered the Master, "that one ear is worth ten thousand tongues. Ponder it well!" The major's look of astonishment annoyed the Master, even while it hurt him. He took scant pleasure in rebuffing this old friend; but certainly "Captain Alden" would not bear discussing. Feeling himself in a kind of _impasse_ regarding Alden, and fearing some telltale expression in his eyes, the Master swung up his binoculars and once more swept the cloud-horizons from northeast to southeast. "We ought to be sighting some of the attackers, before long," judged he. "I'm rather curious to see them--to see flies attacking an eagle. I haven't had a real chance of testing out the neutralizers. Their operation, in actual practice, ought to be interesting." He tried to speak coldly, impersonally; but he well realized a certain strained quality in his voice. Even now, in the hour of impending attack, his thoughts could not remain wholly fixed on the enemy which--so the wireless informed him--lay only a little beyond the haze-enshrouded, burning rim of cloudland.