Must have been near ten o’clock when Rupert announces cheerful:  “By George!  She’s falling behind.  Those searchlights are getting dimmer.”

“I believe you’re right,” says Old Hickory.

Half an hour more and there was no doubt about it.

“Humph!” says Auntie.  “I was sure we could do it.”

And Mr. Ellins is so tickled that he orders up a couple of bottles of his best fizz, so all hands can drink to the U. S. Navy.

“Long may it wave,” says J. Dudley Simms, “and may it always stick to its new motto—­Safety First.”

He got quite a hand on that, and then everybody turned in happy.  As I went to sleep the Agnes was still joggin’ along at her best gait, and it was comfortin’ to know that our wrathy naval friends had been left hopelessly behind.

I expect I must have been poundin’ my ear real industrious for five or six hours when I hears this distant boom, and comes up in my berth as sudden as if someone had pulled the string.  Sunshine was streamin’ in through the porthole, and I was just wonderin’ if I’d slept right through the breakfast gong when boom! it came again.  There’s a rush of feet on deck, some panicky remarks from the man up in the bow, a quick clangin’ of the engine-room bells, and then I feels the propellers reversed.

“Good night!” says I.  “Pinched on the high seas!”

I didn’t waste much time except to throw on a few clothes; but, at that, I finds Auntie scrabblin’ out ahead of me and Captain Killam already on deck.  She’s a picturesque old girl, Auntie, in a lavender and white kimono and a boudoir cap to match; and Rupert, in blue trousers and a pajama top, hardly looks like a triple-plated hero.

“Nabbed!” gasps Rupert, starin’ over the rail, at a gray gunboat that’s just roundin’ in towards us.  It’s the Petrel, sure enough.

“The idea!” says Auntie.  “They were shooting at us, too, weren’t they?  Of all things!”

Then up pads Old Hickory in a low-necked silk dressin’-gown, with his gray hair all rumpled and a heavy crop of white stubble on his solid set jaws.

“Huh!” says he, takin’ a glance at the Petrel.

That’s about all there is to be said, too.  For it was odd how little any of us felt like bein’ chatty.  We just stood around quiet and watched the businesslike motions on the Petrel as she stops about a block off and proceeds to drop a boat into the water.

Projectin’ prominent from one of her steel bay windows is a wicked-lookin’ gun about the size of a young water main, and behind it a lot of jackies squintin’ at us earnest.  And you know how still it seems on a boat when the engines quit.  I almost jumps when someone whispers in my ear.  It’s Vee.

“Now I hope Auntie’s satisfied,” says she.

“There’s no tellin’ about her,” says I.

Anyway, she wasn’t fannin’ herself, or sniffin’ smellin’ salts.  I’d noticed her hail a deck steward, and the next I knew she was spoonin’ away at half a grapefruit, as calm as you please.  Mr. Ellins is indulgin’ in a dry smoke.  Only Mrs. Mumford, when she finally appears, does justice to the situation.  She rolls her eyes, breathes hard, and clutches her crochet bag desperate.