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: