orning) our
eyes focus to the gloom and line out the sea and sky in their shaded
proportions. _Neleus_ grows out of the sombre opacous curtain--a
definite guide with the sea breaking white in her wake. Dark patches of
smoke-wrack, around and about, mark bearings on the sea-line where our
sisters of the convoy are forging through. The next astern has dropped
badly in cleaning fires, and is now throwing a whirl of green smoke in
the effort to regain her station. The sea seems to have lessened since
last we viewed it. Our hot coffee may have had effect in producing a
more impressionable frame of mind, but certainly the weather is no
worse. The rain and sleet have beaten out a measure of the toppling
sea-crests. We see the forecastle-head, black and upstanding, for longer
periods, and only broken spray flies over, where, but a little ago, were
green whelming seas. A sign of modest content comes from the boat-deck,
where the guards are humming, "_Over there, over there, over there! Th'
Yanks are coming!_"

The duty officer (troops) comes to us to pass the time of the morning.
He salutes with punctilio. (He has not yet learned that we are only a
damn civilian, camouflaged, and not entitled to such respect.) It is
reported to him that one of the ship's boats had been badly damaged by a
sea during the night. "In event of--of an accident, is it in orders that
the troops allocated [his word] to that boat shall not go in any other?"

Good lad! For all that darkness and the gale, he looks very fine and
bold, standing stiffly, if somewhat unsteadily, demanding detail of the
Birkenhead Drill! We assure him that there will be no immediate need for
regrouping the men, that measures have already been taken to repair the
damaged planking, that half an hour of daylight will serve us--and turn
the talk to less disquieting affairs. He is very keen. Till now he has
never been farther out to sea than the Iron Steamboat Company would take
him--to Coney Island or the more subdued delights of the Hook. A
New-Yorker, he tempers quite natural vaunts to be the more in keeping
with the great and impending trial that awaits. For all that, he is
gravely concerned that we should recognize his men as good and
true--"the best ever, yessa!" With a good experience of their conduct,
under trying conditions, we assent.

". . . They kin number us up all they wanna, but we're the--th N' Yok
National Guard--a right good team! Down there on th' Mexican barder,