"Well, hardly," came the quick reply, "unless something happened to detain the French steamer after she left Havre days ago. She ought to be a whole lot further along than this boat is. She must be some small liner from Liverpool or Southampton, making for Halifax or New York."
Jack presently tired of staring at the little speck far down below.
"I wonder if they can see us with a glass," he next observed, as Tom began to hand out bread and butter, with hard-boiled eggs or ham between, and some warm coffee kept in Thermos bottles so as to take the chill of the high altitudes out of their bodies.
"Not a chance in a hundred," Beverly assured him. "Besides, those aboard the steamer are devoting all their efforts to watching for enemies in the water, and not among the clouds."
They munched their breakfast and enjoyed it immensely. Indeed it seemed as though they devoured twice as much as upon ordinary occasions.
"Lucky we laid in plenty of grub!" Jack declared, when finally all of them announced that they were satisfied. "This Atlantic air makes one keep hungry all the time. Now I can see that steamer plainly, for we've dropped a little lower. Oh! What can that mean?"
His voice had a ring of sudden alarm about it that instantly aroused Tom's curiosity. Even Lieutenant Beverly looked over his shoulder as though he, too, felt a desire to learn more.
"They seem to be firing guns!" continued Jack presently. "Of course we're far too high to hear the sound, but I can see the smoke as sure as I'm sitting here. Can it be they're being attacked by a Hun undersea boat, do you think, boys?"
"Such things keep on happening right along in these shark-infested waters," replied Tom. "Go on and tell us all you see, Jack!"
They were all of them thrilled by the consciousness that possibly a grim tragedy of the sea was being enacted directly beneath, without any likelihood of their being able to render succor to those who might soon be in distress.