“Ah! there you are,” Sydney called from the bridge, spy-glass in hand.
Phil hurriedly joined him.
“There appears to be a big bank of smoke over there,” he exclaimed, pointing to the western horizon, “and a curl of smoke on our starboard bow.”
Phil took the glass and gazed eagerly for several minutes in both directions.
“That’s a scout,” he said confidently, “and if it is, the fleet is where the other smoke is. I wish I dared go over and investigate,” he added, “but we’d be between them and might fall into a trap.”
Sydney nodded his head.
“Look,” he exclaimed, catching Phil’s arm. “I can see a lot of columns of smoke there.”
Sure enough, the strangers were firing up their boilers. Small black balls of inky smoke seemed to roll up above the horizon to the westward and spread out in mushroom shape above, joined by tiny, hardly discernible stems.
“There are at least twenty-five ships there if there’s one,” Sydney cried, relieving Phil of the spy-glass and looking himself long and eagerly. “It’s pretty nearly the whole Japanese fleet.”
The curl of smoke ahead became more distinct as the yacht overhauled it through her greater speed.