What was it all about? Was it to be tragedy or farce?
Then Scully came down the starboard gangway, a broad smile on his ruddy face.
A clamoring group gathered round him instantly. "What is it?" "Is the 'old man' playing a joke on us?" "Do you suppose Cervera has got over to this side?" "Scully," overwhelmed with questions, put up his hands protestingly.
"No, no; none of those things," said he. "What do you suppose we have been doing for the last twenty minutes?"
We confessed we did not know.
"Chasing thunder claps—nothing more nor less than thunder claps! And we'll see nothing worse on this coast," he added sententiously, as soon as he could get his breath.
The wind rose, and while it blew away the fog in part, it kicked up a nasty sea, in which the "Yankee" wallowed for hours, waiting for the fog to clear enough to make the channel and enter New York harbor. It seemed we had been heading for New York, and we did not know it. It was not the custom aboard that hooker to give the men any information.
