“There you go again, Herc,” reproved Ned. “That fellow heard what you said.”
“Well, he is one, isn’t he?” demanded the irrepressible youth. “An ash-hoister, I mean.”
“That’s no reason to tell him so. Now you, for instance——”
A long blast from the Beale’s siren interrupted him. Instantly boatswain’s mates’ whistles shrilled about the steel decks, and men scampered hither and thither, taking up their posts.
Ned and Herc hastened to theirs, while the orders to “Cast off” rang out sharp and clear. Instantly, like big snakes, the hawsers squirmed inboard, while steam winches rattled furiously. On the conning tower stood the figure of Lieutenant Timmons, with Ensign Gerard, his second in command, beside him.
“Ahead—slow!” he ordered.
A quartermaster shoved over the engine-room telegraph, and the steel decks began to vibrate beneath the boys’ feet. A small navy tug had hastily hitched on to the Beale’s “whale-back” bow, and hauled it round toward the river. Presently, however, this duty done, she, too, cast off. Thus left to her own power, the low, black destroyer glided out among the shipping on the East River, like a ferret slipping through a rabbit warren.
“Hurray for going to sea on a sewing-machine!” grunted Herc sardonically, as the business of casting off being over, the Dreadnought Boys were free for a few minutes.
“Say, Ned,” he remarked suddenly, after an interval spent in watching the busy shipping and the buildings along the shore, “I thought you said this boat could beat anything of her class afloat?”