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wonder, unable to understand his surroundings or the solicitude of the stranger in clerical garb and his equally unfamiliar companion who uttered strange oaths.

He had moved in a long, weary dream, bewildered, speechless.

Later had come gradual and painful awakening. He remembered the events of his dream, and, as such assumed reality, his heart had become heavier and his silence had become conscious.

When, at last, had come the realisation that his loved ones had been laid in a common grave, side by side with the unidentified dead, unmourned, his horror lent him speech; so that his money, his repute, and men’s charity had procured exhumation and separate burial for Grace Harley and Joan Harley in this hallowed spot nearer the stars.

Then silence had fallen upon him once more—silence, and a desire to lie beside his dead.

“Mr. Harley?” asked the telegraph messenger diffidently, as he approached.

Harley turned listlessly and nodded.

“Telegram, sir.”

Harley took the folded scraps of paper and nodded the thanks he did not feel. He imagined that these were messages of condolence.

He tore one open because he saw that he was expected to do so. It was the third which had been sent from New Plymouth.

****

While, to James Harley, the events of these terrible days were merely background for his grief, to Roy, the taxi-driver, they were vivid events to be spoken of in reminiscent moments all the days of his life—events comparable with those of the Great War.

Where was the pacifist who would vote for a reduction in our naval strength now? he would ask of total strangers during the first days when the officers and men of H.M.Ss. Veronica, Dunedin and Diomede brought order out of indescribable chaos.