“Yes; we are in for some sort of bad weather,” was the response. “Have all made snug.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
As the sun dipped below the horizon, bugles began to sing, and on the foremost main-truck, the stern and the sides of every vessel in that long line, appeared simultaneously flashing lights. Night time had shut down on the fleet as it rolled across the vast Pacific wastes.
Other lights began to twinkle and glimmer through the gloom like the illuminated windows of a small city after night has fallen. Behind the great ships streamed a dark, sullen storm cloud of black smoke.
The supper call came and the crew sat down to a meal of beef pot-pie, jelly, bread and butter and tea. Conversation ran mainly on the prospects of the voyage and the lands they were to visit. Many of the old tars had been in the far East and the Mediterranean before, and these regaled the youngsters with many stories of their experiences. Naturally this talk only served to sharpen the appetites of the sailors who awaited their arrival in the Orient with avidity. Then, too, Ned’s rounding up of the recalcitrant stragglers was discussed, and the sentences meted out to the culprits were approved. Of course, Ned and Herc had to show their handsome gold watches, also, and explain the story connected with them.
After supper the Jackies talked and lounged,—those that were off duty, that is. Then came tattoo, and following that the long, melancholy sweet notes of “Taps,” which is the bugle’s way of saying good-night. The sky was heavily overcast and the sea was beginning to heave and roll under the twenty-thousand-ton dreadnought as the bugles sang plaintively the sailors’ bed-time call:
“Go to sleep! Go to sleep! G-o t-o s-l-e-e-p!”
CHAPTER XI.
IN THE GRIP OF THE STORM.
Before dawn, huge green seas were cascading over the forecastle and the ponderous steel mass of the big dreadnought was wallowing in the water-rows like a storm-tossed schooner. Occasionally a mighty comber would strike the bow a glancing blow, and then the spray flew high in a glistening waterspout over the bridge and high up on the cage masts.