Already, one inferred, a sort of censorship was at work, an effective if
comparatively modest precursor to that noble volunteer committee which was
presently with touching spontaneity to fasten itself upon an astonished
Ship of State before it could gather enough way to escape such cirripede
attachments.
Presumably it was not thought wise to disconcert a great people, in the
complacence of its awakening to the fact that it was remotely at war with
the Hun, with information that a Boche submersible was, or of late had
been, operating in the neighbourhood of Nantucket.
Unanimously the sinking of the _Assyrian_ was ascribed to an internal
explosion of unknown origin. No paper hinted that German secret agents
might possibly have figured incogniti among her passengers. There was
mention neither of the flare which had burned on her after deck to make
the _Assyrian_ a conspicuous target in the night, nor of any of the other
untoward events which had led up to the explosion. Nothing whatever
was said of the shot fired at the submerging U-boat by a United States
torpedo-boat destroyer speeding to the rescue.
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