guards were put on duty.

Orders were issued that none should be allowed to escape active share
in the coming battle; that none should retreat to the orlop deck or the
lower deck; that the boys should carry the cartridge-cases handed to
them from the magazine under the cover of their coats, running hard
to the guns. The twenty-four-pounders-the largest guns in use at the
time-the eighteen-pounders, and the twelve-pounder guns were all in good
order.

The bags of iron balls called grape-shot-the worst of all--varying
in size from sixteen to nine balls in a bag, were prepared. Then the
canister, which produced ghastly murder, chain-shot to bring down masts
and spars, langrel to fire at masts and rigging, and the dismantling
shot to tear off sails, were all made ready. The muskets for the
marines, the musketoons, the pistols, the cutlasses, the boarding-pikes,
the axes or tomahawks, the bayonets and sailors' knives, were placed
conveniently for use. A bevy of men were kept busy cleaning the round
shot of rust, and there was not a man on the ship who did not look with
pride at the guns, in their paint of grey-blue steel, with a scarlet
band round the muzzle.

To the right of the Ariadne was the coast of Cuba; to the left was the
coast of Haiti, both invisible to the eye. Although the knowledge that
they were nearing land had already given the officers and men a feeling
of elation, the feeling was greatly intensified as they came through the
Turk Island Passage, which is a kind of gateway to the Windward Passage
between Cuba and Haiti. The glory of the sunny, tropical world was upon
the ship and upon the sea; it crept into the blood of every man, and the
sweet summer weather gave confidence to their minds. It was a day which
only those who know tropical and semitropical seas can understand. It
had the sense of soaking luxury.

In his cabin, with the ship's chart on the table before him, Dyck
Calhoun studied the course of the Ariadne. The wind was fair and good,
the sea-birds hovered overhead. From a distant part of the ship came the
sound of men's voices in song. They were singing "Spanish Ladies":

"We hove our ship to when the wind was sou'west, boys,
We hove our ship to for to strike soundings clear;
Then we filled our main tops'l and bore right away, boys,
And right up the Channel our course did we steer.

"We'll rant and we'll roar like true British sailors,
We'll range and we'll ro