“The Formosa Channel is usually thick,” he replied. “There’s fog there not fifteen miles away, and thick, too.”
“Mr. Perry’s got the right dope,” O’Neil exclaimed in admiration. “Shall I go down, sir, and call them up by wireless?” he asked Phil.
Phil nodded, handing the glasses to Sydney, who also studied the distant fog bank.
“Yes, O’Neil. Remember this time we are the British gunboat ‘Barracouta’ from a cruise bound for Hongkong.”
One of the two scouts appeared to have stopped. Its masts and the top of its smoke-stacks lifted slowly above the horizon, while the other’s smoke gradually dissolved and disappeared. The fleet was soon all in sight, as yet nearly fifteen miles away, but the lofty spars, smoke-stacks and turrets were visible in the field of the high power spy-glass.
The midshipmen’s blood flowed quickly through their young veins as they looked upon this martial display. As the yacht’s course crossed the track of the oncoming fleet, the grim battle-ships could be distinguished to be steaming in two long columns; the dots of black hovering near the fleet the lads knew could be nothing else but the guarding destroyers. The cruiser to the southward appeared motionless, apparently undecided what to do, while the other scout had kept its course and soon passed beyond the horizon.
Marley came hurriedly on deck with a paper which he placed in Phil’s hand.
“What ship is that, and where are you bound?” he read in O’Neil’s handwriting.
A few moments afterward another was brought forward by the sailor.
“Steer close to me; I wish to communicate,” Phil read with sinking heart. He passed the paper to Sydney to read. Impey’s alert eye read the quick look of anxiety in the midshipmen’s faces.