“You won’t frighten us,” Geraldine assured him.

Granet glanced once more at the clock in front of him.

“For a time,” he remarked, “I am your chauffeur.  I just want to see what she’ll do—­to experiment a little.”

From that point conversation became scanty.  The girls leaned back in their seats.  Granet sat bolt upright, with his eyes fixed upon the road.  Shortly before one o’clock they entered Portsmouth.

“The most wonderful ride I ever had in my life!” Geraldine exclaimed.

“Marvelous!” Olive echoed.  “Captain Granet, Ralph promised that there should be a pinnace at number seven dock from one until three.”

Granet pointed with his finger.

“Number seven dock is there,” he said, “and there’s the pinnace.  I shall go back to the hotel for lunch and wait for you there.”

“You will do nothing of the sort,” Geraldine insisted.  “Ralph would be furious if you didn’t come with us.”

“Of course!” Olive interposed.  “How could you think of anything so ridiculous!  It’s entirely owing to you that we were able to get here.”

Captain Granet looked for a moment doubtful.

“You see, just now,” he explained, “I know the regulations for visiting ships in commission are very strict.  Perhaps an extra visitor might embarrass your brother.”

“How can you be so absurd!” Geraldine protested.  “You—­a soldier!  Why, of course he’d be delighted to have you.”

Granet swung the car around into the archway of a hotel exactly opposite the dock.

“All right,” he agreed.  “We’ll leave the car here.  Of course, I’d like to come all right.”

They crossed the cobbled street and made their way to the dock.  The pinnace was waiting for them and in a very few minutes they were on their way across the harbour.  The Scorpion was lying well away from other craft, her four squat funnels emitting faint wreaths of smoke.  She rode very low in the water and her appearance was certainly menacing.

“Personally,” Geraldine observed, leaning a little forward to look at her, “I think a destroyer is one of the most vicious, the most hideous things I ever saw.  I do hope that Ralph will be quick and get a cruiser.”

“Is that the Scorpion just ahead of us?” Granet asked.

Geraldine nodded.

“Did you ever see anything so ugly?  She looks as though she would spit out death from every little crevice.”

“She’s a fine boat,” Granet muttered.  “What did your brother say she could do?”

“Thirty-nine knots,” Geraldine replied.  “It seems wonderful, doesn’t it?”

The officer in charge of the pinnace smiled.

“Our speeds are only nominal, any way,” he remarked.  “If our chief engineer there had the proper message, there’s none of us would like to say what he could get out of those new engines.”

He turned and shouted an order.  In a moment or two they swung around and drew up by the side of the vessel.  Ralph waved his hand to them from the top of the gangway.