While our cruiser regains her own division at top speed, the periscope of a second submarine, on watch in the offing, reveals its furrow of foam on our port side. Regardless of whether it has launched its torpedoes, we rain upon it a steady fire from our lighter guns, not pausing to pursue it, for the order to return is imperative. Half an hour later the _Waldeck-Rousseau_ slows down and again takes her place in the line of cruisers. Their crews look with envy upon this vessel, the first in the naval war to have the triple honor of facing the triple enemies of the ships. Two signals are raised. We take new positions for descending the Adriatic. In a few days we shall come back to insult Austria, and perhaps we shall be more fortunate. It is now the end of a white, translucent morning. On board, the battle organization is abandoned, the ordinary watch resumed. While the officers and sailors on the bridges continue to study the sea, we meet again in the ward-room. Meal-time approaches, no one mentions the moments through which the cruiser has just lived. A certain officer of engineers comes out of the boiler-room and tries to beat his record at cup and ball, playing with a steady hand. Four others, their ears still filled with the roar of the guns, plunge into the peaceful subtleties of “bridge.” Others examine maps of Flanders and Poland. In a profound calm, a kind of oblivion, we talk of things remote from war. And when, after the meal, the commander assembles the officers in the saloon to celebrate in a glass of champagne their baptism of fire, his speech already seems to call up an event from the far past. _Adriatic Sea, 25 October._ Something dark brushes the horizon. A spot on the sky? A storm cloud? The mirage of an island? Our eyes do not hesitate for long; the thing lives and breathes; it is the smoke of a vessel. The officer on watch speeds up the engines, changes the rudder, and points the bow toward this smoke. Since our departure from France not a ship, not a sail, has evaded investigation by our cruisers and destroyers, the Argus and Cerberus of the ocean paths. Above the horizon rise the masts, the stacks, the hull of the ship. Innocent or guilty, it knows it cannot escape our speed, and does not attempt to flee. At fifteen thousand meters, its outline indicates whether it is a liner, or a freighter; at ten thousand, its displacement shows us whether it is loaded or carries no cargo; at five thousand, its flag reveals its nationality. If it be English or French, it is allowed to pass. If neutral, we show it the signal of the international code: “Halt immediately!”