November opened finely, and the weather, except for sharp breezes in the chill of the early morning, left it possible to visit vessel after vessel daily.  Ferrier never had an uncivil word.  One rough customer whom he asked to board the yacht grinned and answered, “No, sir; I don’t hold with Bethel ships.  But,” he added remorsefully, “I’ve heard I reckon fifty times about you and your ladies and gentlemen, and if you was capsized out o’ that eer boat, I’d have mine out and take her arter you my own self if the seas was a comin’ over that there mast-head.”

Then Lewis shook hands with his frank opponent, who grinned affably and waved until the boat was nearly out of sight.  When the time for parting came, Blair told the Admiral, and the bold fellow said humbly, “Well, you’ve done us good.  If you only knew, sir, what it is for us—­us, you know, to have people like you among us, why you’d go and give such a message as would make the gentlemen ashore feel regular funny.  When I first come to sea we was brutes, and we was treated as brutes.  We know you can’t do everything, but just the thought of you being about makes a difference.  It makes men prouder and more ready to take care o’ themselves—­if you’ll excuse me saying so.”

“We’ll do far more yet, Admiral,” interposed Fullerton.  “We’re learning to walk at present.  Wait till you see us in full going order, and none of you will know yourselves.”

“Well, good-bye, sir.  And I want to ask you particular, sir—­very particular.  If the wind suits, don’t run for home till just about dusk to-morrow evening, and go through us.  The glass is firm, and I think we shall do well for days to come.  Mind you oblige us, sir.”

And next morning, as the boats met by the side of the carrier, there was much gossip, and many mysterious messages passed.  Blair told Skipper Freeman what the Admiral wanted, and the good man grinned hard.  “Right, sir; your time’s your own.  I’ll manage.”

The dusk drooped early; a fair breeze was blowing, and the swift schooner loitered with the smacks.  Freeman sent up a rocket, the schooner’s foresail was let over, and she rustled away through the squadron of brown-sailed craft.

“What’s that, Freeman?” asked Blair, as a rocket shot up from the Admiral’s vessel.

“You’ll see, sir, presently.”

The schooner lay hard over when the big topsails were put on her, and drew past one smack after another.  Then a dingy vessel broke suddenly into spots of fire; then another, then another.  Flares, torches—­every kind of illumination was set going; the hands turned up, and a roar that reverberated from ship to ship was carried over the water.  The very canopy of light haze looked fiery; the faces of the men flashed like pallid or scarlet phantoms; the russet sails took every tint of crimson and orange and warm brown, and from point to point of the horizon a multitude of flames threw shaking shafts of light that glimmered far down and splendidly incarnadined the multitudinous sea.