Ten hours previous the practice ship passed the capes of the Chesapeake.
Moderately fair weather had suddenly given way to a sharp squall shortly before dark, and this had changed by midnight to a gale which promised to last until morning.
Clif, with several of his plebe friends, had gone on watch at four bells—two o’clock—and it was while he was acting as lookout on the starboard side of the forecastle that he insisted he had sighted a vessel dead ahead.
He felt rather downcast when he finally left the forecastle and rejoined his chums under the lee of the port bulwarks. Lieutenant Watson’s sarcastic words hurt him. And especially so, as he considered them entirely undeserved.
That he had really seen a vessel almost within a cable’s length of the Monongahela he was positive. But why had not others seen it? And why did the ship disappear so mysteriously and suddenly?
Clif was not superstitious, nor did he place any faith in the tales of the old sailors, but his flesh crept as he cast one last glance at the raging seas, and he welcomed with gladness Nanny’s cheery voice.
“Hello, chum! See anything more of your Dutchman?” laughed the little lad.
“That’s what Judson Greene called it,” said Joy, gloomily. “He’s always trying to say mean things. Why can’t he be peaceful, and not always attempt to stir up trouble? Why ain’t he like me? When I have it in for a fellow, do I go around casting sneering remarks? No, indeedy! I act like a peaceful man and a Christian. I simply swat him one with a club, or beat the blooming head off him.”
“Hurray!” giggled the Japanese youth. “You bully boy after my own—my own—what you call him?”
“Liver!” suggested a lad named Toggles, gravely.