“I guess I must be more important than I thought,” he observed to Ned.
“How’s that, Herc?”
“Why, the commander as good as said that the fleet couldn’t get along without me. They had to wait for me, didn’t they?”
“See here, Herc, don’t get all puffed up over that. I’m sorry we didn’t let you stew in there a while longer to take some of the conceit out of you. You ought to thank your stars that you didn’t get the brig.”
“Pooh!” exclaimed Herc, “the brig would have seemed like a little Paradise after that solitary cell. As the old man said, ‘I was punished enough.’”
The bugle for afternoon gunnery practice with the Morris tubes cut short the boys’ conversation. They hustled to their stations for the “small caliber” duty on the big guns, which was an almost daily feature of their work and one that they enjoyed hugely.
CHAPTER XVIII.
IN GOLDEN SEAS.
The following days passed uneventfully. The ships were now running into golden seas where the sun shone down hotly. Awnings were rigged and “white uniforms and bare feet” was the order sent aloft on the flag-ship for the instruction of the rest of the squadron.
One afternoon the lookout sang out in a voice that carried fore and aft the always welcome cry to a sailor:—