Bert was in his cabin, and chanced to see the dew vanish from the
window and caught the gleam of sunlight outside. He looked out,
and saw once more that sunlit cloud floor he had seen first from
the balloon, and the ships of the German air-fleet rising one by
one from the white, as fish might rise and become visible from
deep water. He stared for a moment and then ran out to the
little gallery to see this wonder better. Below was cloudland
and storm, a great drift of tumbled weather going hard away to
the north-east, and the air about him was clear and cold and
serene save for the faintest chill breeze and a rare, drifting
snow-flake. Throb, throb, throb, throb, went the engines in the
stillness. That huge herd of airships rising one after another
had an effect of strange, portentous monsters breaking into an
altogether unfamiliar world.

Either there was no news of the naval battle that morning, or the
Prince kept to himself whatever came until past midday. Then the
bulletins came with a rush, bulletins that made the lieutenant
wild with excitement.

"Barbarossa disabled and sinking," he cried. "Gott im Himmel!
Der alte Barbarossa! Aber welch ein braver krieger!"

He walked about the swinging cabin, and for a time he was wholly
German.

Then he became English again. "Think of it, Smallways! The old
ship we kept so clean and tidy! All smashed about, and the iron
flying about in fragments, and the chaps one knew--Gott!--flying