And so, having disposed of the psychology of the enemy, we turned in for the night.  We were entering the danger zone and the night was hot.  A few passengers slept on deck; but most of the ship’s company went to their cabins.  We didn’t seem to be afraid.  We presumed that our convoy would appear in the morning.  But when it failed to appear we assumed that there was no danger.  No large French passenger boat had been sunk by the Germans; this fact we heard a dozen times that day.  It soothed us.  The day passed without bringing our convoy.  Again we went to bed, realizing rather clearly that the French do take things casually; and believing firmly that the convoys would come with the dawn.  But dawn came and brought no convoy.  We seemed to be nearing land.  The horizon was rarely without a boat.  The day grew bright.  We were almost through the danger zone.  We went to lunch a gay lot, all of us; but we hurried back to the deck; not uneasily, not in fear, understand, but just to be on deck, looking landward.  And then at two o’clock it appeared.  Far off in the northeast was a small black dot in the sky.  It looked like a seabird; but it grew.  In ten minutes the whole deck was excited.  Every glass was focused on the growing black spot.  And then it loomed up the size of a baseball; it showed colour, a dull yellow in the distance and then it swelled and took form and glowed brighter and came rushing toward us, as large as a moon, as large as a barrel, and then we saw its outlines, and it came swooping over us, a great beautiful golden thing and the whole deck burst into cheers.  It was our convoy, a dirigible balloon—­vivid golden yellow, trimmed with blue!  How fair it seemed.  How graceful and how surely and how powerfully it circled about the ship like a great hovering bird, and how safe we felt; and as we cheered and cheered the swirling, glowing, beautiful thing, we knew how badly frightened we really had been.  With danger gone, the tension lifted and we read the fear in our hearts.  A torpedo boat destroyer came lumbering across the sky line.  It also was to convoy us, but it had a most undramatic entrance; and besides we had sighted land.  The deck cheered easily, so we cheered the land.  And everyone ran about exclaiming to everyone else about the wonder and splendour of the balloon, and everyone took pictures of everyone else and promised to send prints, and the land waxed fat and loomed large and hospitable while Henry paced the deck with his hands clasped reflectively behind him.  He was deeply moved and language didn’t satisfy him much.  Finally he took his fellow Kansan by the arm and pointed to the magnificence of the hovering spectre in yellow and blue that circled about the ship: 

“Bill,” he said, solemnly, “isn’t she a peach!” He paused, then from his heart he burst out:  “’How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of them that bring glad tidings!’ I wish the fellows in Wichita could get this thing for the wheat show!”