Soon they were taking an interest in all that went on around them. Oyster boats with the men at work dredging or tonging; duck hunters in blinds, or lying, it might be, in sink-boxes on the shallows with their decoys all around them—things like these were constantly cropping up to be observed through the marine glasses which they had been thoughtful enough to provide themselves with before starting on the voyage.
The afternoon sun was sinking toward the western horizon, and it was figured that by morning they would have arrived close to the ocean at Hampton Roads.
“How fast are we going, do you think, boys?” Ballyhoo was asking, while they continued to sit there and enjoy the bracing air of that late Fall afternoon.
“That’s hard to decide,” Oscar told him. “I understand that this boat can make about seventeen miles on the surface of the water, providing the sea is fairly calm. We may be doing nearly that right now.”
“And when she sinks down under the sea, what is she capable of doing then?” continued Ballyhoo, always eager for facts.
“Oh! I think it was about eight or nine knots an hour, which would be pretty good, all things considered,” Oscar replied.
“Our quarters are pretty cramped and we’ll be crowded a whole lot,” Jack said in a reflective way, “but we expected that before we came. Your uncle told us, Ballyhoo, we’d likely have to put up with many discomforts, and lack of space would be one of them.”
“What’s the odds so long as we’re happy,” Ballyhoo Jones laughingly declared. “We can be as snug as three bugs in a rug. There are some things a heap worse than being crowded. Sitting up in a bally old tree the livelong night, with a pair of hungry lions prowling around under you is one of them.”
“Yes, you know all about that sort of thing, Ballyhoo,” chuckled Oscar; “also how being almost devoured by cannibal ants feels. But we’re not going to run across anything like that on this trip, I reckon.”
“Oh! give things a chance, boys,” said Ballyhoo, confidently, “and there’ll be adventures a-plenty cropping up to make our hearts jump like mad. This time it may be storms, pirates, a damaged engine while we’re lying at the bottom of the sea so we can’t rise for air, and all that sort of thing.”