to the north--the two fleets drawing together on gently converging lines. Twenty minutes later, from the light cruiser _Galatea_, flying the broad pennant of Commander E. S. Alexander-Sinclair, a message was received by Admiral Beatty in the _Lion_ that enemy forces had been sighted to the eastward; and the order was at once given to alter course to the south-southeast to cut them off from their base. Five minutes {173} afterward, the _Galatea_ signalled that the enemy was present in considerable strength--a signal also received by Admiral Jellicoe on board his flagship the _Iron Duke_--and, within ten minutes, a drift of smoke, far to the east, became visible to the _Lion_. Admiral Beatty now ordered the _Engadine_, the seaplane carrier attached to his fleet, to send up a seaplane on reconnaissance, and this was most promptly and gallantly carried out. Unable to fly, owing to the clouds, more than 900 feet high, she came under a fierce fire from the enemy cruisers, but brought back very valuable information. The presence of enemy battle-cruisers ahead was now accurately known, and the course had been changed again to the northeast, the First and Third Light Cruiser Squadrons having spread themselves to the eastward to form a screen for the battle-cruisers. At half-past three the report from the seaplane was received, and, a minute later, enemy ships were sighted by the _Lion_, Admiral Beatty then forming into line of battle, and again changing his course, this time to east-southeast. All three Light Cruiser Squadrons were now ahead of the "Cats," these being followed up by the _New Zealand_, and the _Indefatigable_, the _Barham_, _Valiant_, _Warspite_, and _Malaya_ bringing up the rear a few miles behind. Von Hipper, with his five cruisers and accompanying mosquito-craft, had also turned to the southeast, and the two forces were again steaming parallel, and again slowly drawing together. For the moment, the Germans were considerably outnumbered, at any rate in capital ships, and Beatty had the advantage, {175} both tactically, in that the sun was in his favour, not low enough to silhouette him, and illuminating the enemy, and strategically, in that he was upon a course cutting off von Hipper from his base. On the other hand, he was, at the moment, and in accordance with a correct appreciation of his duty, drawing further away from Admiral Jellicoe and the Battle Fleet to the north; while von Hipper was aware that the whole German High Seas Fleet was hurrying to meet him from the south. For the German rear-admiral it was a race against time, and it cannot be denied that for the fifty minutes in which he was thus outweighted, his gunnery was as excellent as it had always been assumed that, in the first stages of a fight, it would be. It was only under the ordeal of casualties, both in men and machinery, that his accuracy began to waver and that of the British to increase; and it was while he was at his strongest, as it chanced, that