“The man” was at work. Where would he strike next? The rest of the fleet went on, as if no blow had come. Not by a sign did they show what had come upon them. I glanced at my wire screen, and at my crew who stood in a huddled group. The correspondents, in the boats nearby, were standing with white faces, peering ahead. I turned my glasses on the German fleet. The leading ship was coming forward, under full steam. A shot struck just to my right, and I realized that peril might come from other sources than from the man who was trying, no, who _was_ stopping all war. But it was all in the game of life. My part in the game just then was to be at that very place, and I thrust back the thought of parting with Dorothy that, despite myself, arose. [Illustration: I FOUND MYSELF COUNTING ALOUD. [_Page 247._ ] Through my glasses, I gazed fixedly at the German ship as she came on. Then, as before, came the utter blankness, the gray sky and the waves rising and falling. One English ship and one German. Where would he strike next? As I asked the question, another English ship disappeared more swiftly than a cloud of light smoke scattered by the wind. I found myself counting aloud. In a state of utter unconsciousness as to anything else, I gazed fixedly to see which would go next. “Four,” I counted, as a German cruiser off on the right went down. “Five! six!” They were going at the rate of one every two or three minutes now. “‘The man’ must be in one spot, and he has the range now,” I said to myself, as two more ships disappeared. Those ships that remained were firing rapidly. Now and again a shot would hit, and a cloud of steel fly out from a turret, or a big hole appear in a side. Their brothers were dying an awful death, the sister ships of the fleet were disappearing before their eyes, but the men who directed those gray bull dogs of war kept on. In a perfect frenzy of excitement, I cheered aloud. “Oh plucky, plucky!” I cried, as the squadrons, closing their thinned ranks, bore down on each other. Twenty had gone from eighty-two, destroyed by this wonder-worker. Ten of the rest were in sore straits. Shots were falling on every side of me, but, in the mad excitement of the moment, I heeded them no more than if they had been paper pellets. Then the death-dealing machine seemed suddenly to accelerate its action. “Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight,” I counted slowly. The fleets never changed a point of their course. Not by a gun was the fire slackened, save in the few ships disabled by the enemy. The fortieth ship had disappeared for ten minutes. Then, as by a common understanding, the fire of each side slackened for a moment as the ships, closing up their ranks, maneuvered for new positions. In the lessening din, I could hear the chug-chug of the little motor of our boat. That sound always carried me back to the night when Dorothy and I sought the man who saw the Alaska go down.