“Why, I have an idea that we won’t have to wait much longer,” replied Trent, smiling at the eager faces before him.  “I’ve just learned that, for the last twenty minutes, Captain Gales has been standing in the wireless room, and that Commander Bainbridge is with him.  They are, so I hear, having a hot and heavy wireless talk with Admiral Fletcher.”

“A little talk, as a relief from so much watching and waiting, eh?” asked Darrin, dryly.

“Why, I believe that the talk is going to lead to something real,” replied Lieutenant Trent, trying hard to keep the flash of excitement from showing in his own eyes.  The fact is, something has happened.”

“Don’t ‘string’ us like that!” urged Danny Grin.  “Why, Trent, the American Navy, and the Army, too, has been waiting for three years or more for something to happen.  But so far it has all happened on the Mexican side.  Don’t tell us, at this late day, that the United States is going to start anything to happening on the other side.”

“There’s something up,” Trent insisted.  “I don’t know what it is; I haven’t an idea of the nature of the happening, but of this I feel rather sure,—–­that now, at last, the Mexicans have done something that will turn Yankee guns and Yankee men loose.”

“I wonder if you’re any good as a prophet, Trent?” pondered Dan, studying his division officer’s face keenly.

“We’ll wait and see,” laughed the lieutenant.  “If there really is anything in the wind, I think we’ll have a suspicion of what it is by mess-hour to-night.  A little more watching and waiting won’t hurt us.”

“Hear that commotion on the quarter-deck?” demanded Dave, suddenly.  “I hear a lot of talking there.  Come on.  We’ll see if waiting is about to be turned into doing.”

Trent walked slowly aft.  Still chatting with him, Dave and Dan kept by his side.  Then they stood looking down upon the quarter-deck.

Presently two messengers came running out, looking eagerly about them.  One messenger, catching sight of the three officers on the superstructure, came bounding up the steps, halting and saluting.

“Compliments of the executive officer,” announced the messenger; “Ensigns Darrin and Dalzell are directed to report to his office immediately.”

“Perhaps you’ll hear the news at once,” murmured Trent, as his juniors left him.

When the two ensigns reported to him, Commander Bainbridge was pacing the passageway outside his office.

“The captain is awaiting us in his office,” said the executive.  “We will go there at once.”

The instant he entered the captain’s quarters, Darrin had sudden misgivings of some impending misfortune, for Lieutenant Cantor, very erect, and looking both stern and important, was talking in low tones with Captain Gales.

“Now, what has the scoundrel found to fasten upon me?” Ensign Dave Darrin wondered, with a start.  “And how has he managed to drag Dan into it?”