CHAPTER XV.
COMINGS AND GOINGS.
I.
''Ere, wot's that over there?' inquired Pincher Martin, coming on to the forecastle early one morning with a basin of hot cocoa for one Billings, able seaman.
Joshua looked round. 'Na then, young fella, don't go spillin' the ruddy stuff,' he grunted agitatedly, taking the bowl with a nod of thanks. 'Wot's wot?'
'That there,' said the ordinary seaman, pointing.
''Er?' remarked the A.B. huskily, breathing heavily on to the hot liquid to cool it. 'That there? Only a bloomin' Zeppeling, Pincher. You've see'd 'em afore, ain't yer?'
'Course I 'as. Only I thort to meself as 'ow she looked a bit different, some'ow. Quite pretty like, ain't she?'
The distant airship, floating apparently motionless above the eastern horizon, certainly did appear a thing of beauty for the time being. Her elongated body, dwarfed by the distance until it appeared barely an inch long, was plainly silhouetted as a gray-blue shape against the clear, rosy sky of the dawn, while her curved under-side reflected the scarlet and orange of the rapidly rising sun. She looked graceful and almost ethereal—not a thing of bombs, terror, and destruction.
Joshua drank his cocoa with noisy gulps. 'I don't know abart wot she looks like,' he observed at length, wiping his mouth with the back of a particularly grimy hand. 'You wait till she starts droppin' 'er bombs. I reckons them blokes is no better'n murderers.'