The Sea-girt Fortress: A Story of Heligoland
the Borkum Flat lightship."  

The Sub whistled.  

"We're out in our dead reckoning, Detroit," said he. "I thought we'd left the lightship well on our starboard quarter. If this man's story is correct—and I have no reason to believe otherwise—we ought to be within hearing distance of the lightship. This fog is the most persistent I have ever experienced."  

"We will soon be in the way of steamship traffic in and out of the Elbe and Weser."  

"Or else piled up on one of those treacherous sandbanks. I'll see what the North Sea Pilot says. Ah! Here we are: 'Borkum Riff, or Flat; syren in fog, one blast of five seconds every minute'. That's what we have to listen for, old man."  

Returning to the cabin, Hamerton resumed his conversation with Hans. The seaman was profuse in his expressions of gratitude, for he realized that but for Detroit's plucky act he would be lying in the bed of the North Sea, twenty fathoms deep, instead of finding himself in the cabin of the Diomeda. He knew Kiel well, for not only had he been stationed there, but before he was called up for sea-service in the imperial navy he had been a fisherman at Flensburg, a town in the province of Schleswig. Thus he was able to give his benefactor much valuable information concerning the yacht anchorage in the neighbourhood of Kiel Bay.  

The man was evidently troubled. His sense of duty, fostered by the cast-iron discipline of the German navy, prompted him to report himself as soon as practicable, and Hamerton, nowise loath to recognize a praiseworthy trait in Hans Pfeil's character, promised to tranship him to the first steamship bound either for Hamburg or Bremen.  

"There's the Borkum Riff," announced Detroit.  

"You're right," assented the Sub, after listening till the lightship again gave its warning note; "but goodness only knows the direction whence the sound comes. Seems as if it's on our port bow."  

"Starboard, I think," remarked his companion.  

"The fog's not only trying to the sight, but to the sense of hearing as well. We'll carry on, and trust to luck. It's my trick at the helm now, my boy."  

For another hour the Diomeda hung on her course. The syren of the lightship sounded louder and louder, while the hooters of several vessels, adding to the din, betokened 
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