"Watch there, watch!"
The steamboat, slowed as she passed close under the stern of a battleship. The fog had lifted, and the Officer of the Middle Watch was leaning over the quarter-deck rail. The Lieutenant of the Night Guard raised his head, and in the gleam of the ship's stern light the two officers recognised each other. They had been in the Britannia, together. The former laughed a greeting.
"Go back to bed, you noisy blighter!"
The cloaked figure in the boat chuckled. "That's where I am going," he called back.
XVII.
"FAREWELL AND ADIEU!"
The Junior Watch-keeper paused at the corner of the street and smote the pavement with the ferrule of his stick.
"Lord!" he ejaculated, "to think this is the last night! Look at it all...." Dusk had fallen, and with it a wet mist closed down on the town. The lights from the shop windows threw out a warm orange glow that was reflected off the wet pavements and puddles in the street. The shrill voice of a paper-boy, hawking the evening paper, dominated all other sounds for a moment. "Eve ... nin' Er-r-rald!" he called. Then, seeing the two figures standing irresolute on the kerb, ran towards them.
"Evenin' 'Erald! sir? Naval 'Pointments, sir ... To-night's Naval 'Point——"
The Lieutenant shook his head half impatiently, then added as if speaking to himself, "No—not yet." It was such a familiar evening feature of life ashore in a Dockyard Port, that hoarse, "jodelling" cry. One bought the paper and glanced through the columns over a gin-and-bitters at the Club. But this was the last night: every familiar sensation and experience should be flavoured in their turn—ere they two went hence and were no more seen!