“Give the Pilot the glass, Hopeton,” said Neil. “He's got a good eye.”
“There are two ships, boys, as I'm a sinner, but what they are, I don't know,” cried Barry in a voice tense with excitement. “Here, Neil, take the glass. You know about ships.”
Long and earnestly, Captain Neil held the glass in the direction indicated.
“Boys, by all that's holy, they're destroyers,” he said at length in a low voice.
Even as they gazed, the two black dots rapidly took shape, growing out of the mist into two sea monsters, all head and shoulders, boring through the seas, each flinging high a huge comb of white spray, and with an indescribable suggestion of arrogant, resistless power, bearing down upon the ship at furious speed.
“Destroyers!” shouted Captain Neil, in a voice that rang through the ship. “By gad, destroyers!”
There was no question of friend or foe; only Great Britain's navy rode over those seas immune.
Upon every hand the word was caught up and passed along. In a marvellously short space of time, the rails, the boats, the rigging, all the points of vantage were thronged with men, roaring, waving, cheering, like mad.
With undiminished speed, each enveloped in its cloud of spray, the destroyers came, one on each side, rushed foaming past, swept in a circle around the ship and took their stations alongside, riding quietly at half speed like bulldogs tugging at a leash.
“Great heavens, what a sight!” At the croak in Hopeton's voice, the others turned and looked at him.