"I'm sorry I snapped you up," remarked the skipper slowly.
"Didn't know that you did."
"But I did. Don't you remember my saying something about being hanged if I cared, when you asked me what vessel that was that was flashing her searchlight?"
"After all, it was a silly question," rejoined Stirling. "How could you be expected to know any more than I should?"
"I believe I do know, though," asserted Smith. "Look away on our port hand. Do you see those patches of misty light on the sky?"
"Well?"
"They're searchlights playing on the clouds. Evidently the Heligoland torpedo flotilla are engaged in night manoeuvres; to me it seems like a trial of aircraft versus submarines and destroyers."
"And the vessel that turned her searchlight on the Boxer? She wasn't sky hunting?"
"No; not just then. You see, she spotted the navigation lights of the Boxer and the Diomeda, and was naturally curious. But there she goes!" As Smith spoke a narrow ray of light flashed vertically upwards at apparently less than two miles away to the southward. Then, describing an ever-widening spiral, the beam searched the clouds for a considerable time, till, having satisfied herself that the object which she was in search of was not within range of the searchlight, the foreign warship screened the light and made off.
"Let's get below; it's fairly habitable," suggested Stirling. "I'm mighty hungry; and even these oilskins seem to strike cold."