nder his direction they proceeded to collect pebbles. "A withering
volley will accordingly be opened on the Lancashire Fusiliers."

Despite a heavy fire of pebbles, the landing was ultimately effected;
the invaders abandoned their trousers and floundered gallantly through
the bullet-torn shallows. Ensued a complete rout of the Turks, who
were pursued inland across the heather with triumphant shouts and the
corpse of a seagull, found on the beach, hurled after them from the
point of a piece of driftwood.

The evicted snipers eventually returned with their caps full of
plovers' eggs, to find a fire of bleached twigs blazing and sausages
frizzling in the frying-pan. They were handed mugs of hot tea.

In the phraseology of chroniclers of Sunday-school treats, "ample
justice was done to the varied repast." Then it was discovered that
the tide was falling, and a hasty re-embarkation followed.

Sails were hoisted, the anchor weighed, and the cutter, with the empty
skiff in tow, headed for the West, where the sun was already setting in
a great glory of gold.

The brief warmth of a Northern spring day had passed, and, as they
rounded the promontory and the Fleet hove in sight once more, duffle
coats and mufflers were donned and a bottle of sloe-gin uncorked.

"Mug-up!" cried the Sub. "Mug-up, and let's get 'appy and chatty."
They crowded together in the stern-sheets for warmth, and presently
Thorogood started "John Brown's Body Lies A-mouldering in the Grave,"
without which no properly conducted picnic can come to a fitting
conclusion. The purple shadows deepened in the far-off valleys ashore,
and anon stole out across the water, enfolding the anchored Fleet into
the bosom of another night of a thousand vigils.

It was dusk when they reached the outlying Cruisers, and nearly dark
when the first ship in the Battle Fleet hailed them. Then hail
answered hail as one Battleship after another rose towering above them
into the darkling sky, and one by one passed into silence astern.

Silence also had fallen on the singers. Seen thus from an open
boat under the lowering wings of night, there was something
awe-inspiring--even to these who lived onboard them--in the stupendous
fighting outlines limned against the last of the light. Complete
darkness reigned on board, but once a dog barked, and the strains of an
accordion drifted across the water as reminders that each of these
menacing mysteries was the habitation of thei