"You don't look like leaving us in a hurry," remarked Midshipman Sefton, when he communicated the latest change of plans to Trefusis and his chum.
"We don't mind in the slightest," Ross hastened to assure him. "It's jolly comfortable on board the Oxford."
"Wait until we're ordered straight away for patrol work," said Sefton. "It's more than likely that we may be pushed off to the Norwegian coast without having so much as a sniff at Rosyth. We'll just about hit the equinoctial gales, and in those latitudes they get ice and snow pretty early in the autumn. But, by the by, I heard the doctor tell the Commander that your pal, von Hauptwald, is in a pretty state of funk."
"I shouldn't wonder," replied Ross. "A court-martial will make it pretty hot for him."
"It's hardly that," said Sefton. "The fellow's absolutely crazy with fear. He's been imploring the master-at-arms and the sentry on the cells to ask the skipper to shift him above the water-line. It's only since the ship arrived in home waters, so it seems as if he's in mortal dread of being cooped up below and the Oxford being mined or torpedoed."
"And what did the Captain say?"
"Merely told the M.A.A. to carry on. Since the cells are below the water-line, and the King's Regulations say that prisoners are to be placed in cells, that ends the matter."
Passing through the Little Minch, and continually steering an erratic course in order to baffle any unterseebooten, should they be operating off the West coast of Scotland, the Oxford rounded Cape Wrath.
In spite of a rapidly falling glass the weather still remained fine, although the heavy swell encountered off the coast of Sutherland and Caithness betokened, in conjunction with the barometer, a gale at no distant date.
"This will be you fellows' last night on board," remarked Farnworth, one of the Acting Sub-lieutenants, as Ross and Vernon prepared to turn into their hammocks after a strenuous sing-song in the gun-room mess. "We'll be at Rosyth before noon to-morrow. 'Fraid it's been a bit tame after the Capella. Beyond that affair of the Tehuantepec Girl there hasn't been much doing. The small fry get all the excitement, I'm sorry to say. These armoured cruisers seem to be neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring in these times."