"Boat ahoy!" The voice from nowhere sounded like an alarm. It was as if the darkness were suddenly suspicious of this swiftly-moving, palpitating thing from across the water. The figure in the bows removed his hands from his arm-pits, picked up the megaphone, and sent a reassuring bellow in the direction of the hail.
"Guard Boat!" he answered, and as he did so a vast towering shape had loomed up over them. "Answer's, 'Guard Boat!' sir," said the faint voice somewhere above their heads, addressing an unseen third person. A dark wall appeared, surmounted by a shadowy superstructure and a giant tripod mast that was swallowed, long before the eye could reach its apex, in vapour and darkness. The sleek flanks of guns at rest showed for an instant.... A sleeping "Super-Dreadnought." It faded into the darkness astern; then nothing but the mist again, and the throb of the boat's engines.
Another, and another, and yet another watchful Presence loomed up out of the night, hailed suspiciously, and, at the megaphone's answering bellow, merged again into the silent darkness. A figure stepped aft in the Guard Boat and adjusted the tarpaulin that covered the rifles lying on top of the cabin: moisture had collected among the folds in little pools. Then the engine-room gong rang, and a voice quite near hailed them. A long black shadow appeared abreast, and the Guard Boat slid alongside a Destroyer at anchor. The dark water between the two hulls churned into foam as the boat reversed her engines. A tall figure holding a lantern leaned over the Destroyer's rail.
"Night Guard," said the Lieutenant curtly. As he came forward, three men climbed silently up from below and stood awaiting orders at his side. The lantern shone unsteadily on their impassive faces.
"Are you the Quartermaster?"
"Yessir." The tall man in oilskins leaning over the Destroyer's rail lowered his lantern.
"All right, I won't come inboard. All correct?"
"All correct, sir."
"Right. Put it in the log that I've visited you. Good-night."
"Good-night, sir."