“What ship?” answered the officer of the deck.
“I don’t know, sir. Can’t make them out exactly.”
The small boat, manned by a perspiring boatman, was creeping nearer and nearer to the huge, drab-colored man-of-war, whose towering sides and huge masts dwarfed everything else about it.
The small boat pulled up to the starboard or right side of the ship, and drifted in.
“Boat, ahoy!” called down the quartermaster, making a megaphone of his hands. “What do you want?”
“We want to come aboard, sir?” answered Dan, rising in the fragile skiff and saluting.
“Who are you?”
“Recruits from the Newport Training Station, assigned to this ship.”
