Evening star., 1915-04-04

wings of their explosive storm.
He wondered If they were firing at
him. All that he knew was that his
world Just then was only one blur of
whistlins. stranslinS. shifting AIR and
deafening roar. He struck hole in
the air and pitched sharply. He swept
over the fog bank 1t could not help
him now. He dared not sink low
enough to hide in it. shining brightly
in the bright air. he volleyed straight
on as II he were going to dash into the
blue wall of sky ahead.
He Won. He never knew how far
the enemy planes had pursued. or
whether they had come near him or
not. He knew only that suddenly there
was a yellow band of sandy land deep.
deep under him, that the next instant
trees and hills swept past like little
color prints and that he came to earth.
Then he reached for flask. And then
he looked to wonder where he had
landed. And then he heard the roar
Of motor on one side of him, and the
up shouted a man in khaki, leaning
from the side of a swaying. drunkenly
rolling car. He put up his hands,
laughing Historically.
Fifteen minutes later the telephone
bells rang In the forts on Fishers Is
land, Plum Island, in the Narragansett
harbor defenses and in the headquar-
ters of the field army. 1t told them
that the enemy transports were thirty
miles south of Nantucket Island. stand
ing in for Block Island sound or Long
Island.
Up from Fishers Island under the
Connecticut shore mounted an army
hydroaeroplane. 1t rose 1000 feet. and
circIed there with such graceful.
steady wheelings that despite its con-
slant speed it seemed to be soaring in
lazy spirals like a sleepy gull. Under
the two fiiers In the machine lay the
eastern entrance of Long Island sound
the water-gate to New York. with
half-open jaws whose fangs We're the
gums of Fishers Island on the north
and Plum Island on the south ltterlS
harmless and innocuous seemed those
two jaws, for not even the keenest eye
could make out from above anything
more savage than grassy MOUNDS eno
daintily graded slopes of earth. Not
even the sharpest glass could see with
in those pretty models in relief the
dragons of 12-inch mortars that squat
ted in hidden pits sixteen IN group.
or the sleek. graceful rif1ed cannon
whose secret machinery could swing
their thirty-five tons upward in an IN
stant and as instantly withdraw them
after they had spat out their half ton
of shot.
Between the guarding jaws there was
deep water-deep and beautifully
green. One of the airmen spoke to the
other. who looking out to sea
he said. nodding to indicate the water
below.
Both looked. They looked into fifty
feet of ocean. but their height made il
but as a thick pane of dim green glass.
They saw things moving, deep down.
They were sleek and gray. like small
whales. But they had snouts longer
and sharper than any whale that ever
swan. Three of them there We're,
moving out to sea through the en-
trance. steadily, at about ten knots an
hour
An hour passed. The men in the
hydro-aeroplane descended. and their
reliefs went up. They circled for an
hour. Sometimes they drifted out to
sea till the land was lost behind them.
The forts and the army headquarters
caught a wireless from the air The
enemy fleet was approaching Block
Island said the message. The hydro
aeroplane was rushing homeward while
il Spattered its news into the air. for
it was slow machine. and swifter
ones were over the feet. The enemy
had formed in columns. CALCULATED the
fleeing machines with destroyers and
light cruisers in advance. and the
transports. gripped on all sides by ar
mored ships. were coming on i'll echelon
formation. eight cable lengths. or $500
leet, apart.
simultaneously, almost. all the coast
places from Barneeat to the end of
New York harbors farthest flung do
main sisnaled and telephoned and
wired that the ,nenacinG ships had
disappeared. 70 Washington and the
waiting American feet passed the
message from sea scouts that all the
enemy screen was Withdrawing slowly
toward the east-a mighty screen.
lylng along a hundred miles out 10
sea, and steadily closing in on its nv
cleus. to protect its TANKS and rear
against surprise from the ocean ways
They were moving fast now-nlu"h
faster than fourteen knots Ihere was
10 feiut now. They were sweeping
straight at the land. But where would
they strike? Would they land at Long
Island to march their army to New
York. or would they strike at Rhode
Island or the southern coast of Massa =
chHsetts?
Boston was sure that they would
come at Massachusetts,; New York
roared with the news that Its oWi
Long Island aSt was the enemy )
object. But though the cities We're
shaken with panic. there We're no mohs
now Noise and fear and medley OF
advice and demand and anger there
were but no mobs. The cities had
handled their mobs with long cordons
of silent, stout, unimaginatlNe police
and with firemen who brought out
Changing engines and hose. 1t was the
best answer to hysteria, for these sud :
den-born mobs had been born only of
hysteria They became all the more
orderly after it had had its vent And
the real mob. the silent. brooding. dan
gerous underworld, had not begun to
stir
II would not now. Before noon there
were men in all the armories-militia
fragments and volunteers. They We're
incapable of fighting soldiers; but the
nobs were as helpless against them as
they. in turn. were helpless against
trained armies.
on a dreadnaught in the van of the
conveying fleet. stood the admiral of
the armada He was speaking with
the ships captain as they paced up
and down the bridge. Everywhere
enormously long polished black can
non thrust their bodies out of tur-
rets Like the peerins heads OF
serpents the guns of the secondary
EVERYWHERE stood the officers and men
at quarters. Without moments pause
signals ran up and down, whipping
out their gaudy messages. and ever
lastingly the wireless sounded its slut
tering staccato. Yet there was a
placid, strangely peaceful quiet over
the whole gray, tall, bristling machine.
Except for it's appearance, IT might
have been a pleasure yacht.
IT'S a lovely shore" the admiral
was saving, .'Some beautiful estates
fuiiv entertained within five miles of
-, sbalI land IT seems a rough