Their handwriting was a scrawl which horrified them, and their pride took a tumble under the inquisition of an examination that shattered their vanity to atoms.
Some of them were undoubtedly greenhorns, others were city boys, with an air of assurance which the first broadside of their judges laid low, and others were quiet, diffident fellows, with the look about them to go in and win.
And while the cadets were watching and waiting for the coming of the lad appointed for meritorious services, they became interested in the splendid handling of a schooner rushing into port in a gale, and to their amazement the one at the helm landed and announced himself as:
“Mark Merrill, the man from Maine.”
CHAPTER IX.
GOING ASHORE.
Leaving Mark Merrill facing the crowd of midshipmen who met him as he landed, I will ask my reader to return with me until I explain the fact of his arrival as helmsman of a schooner yacht, and his appointment to a cadetship in the naval school.
It will be remembered that he had saved the yacht, by a strange coincidence bearing the name of Midshipman, and this every one on board realized.
He had driven her through a dangerous channel, with reefs on every hand, in the darkness and storm, standing coolly at his post and issuing his orders in a voice that was firm and commanding, until he had brought her into a basin as quiet as a mill pond, and said:
“Let go the anchor!”