e with you. I'll send a boat at seven bells."

Captain Syllenger readily gave the midshipmen permission.

"It looks as if it might blow a bit before very long," he added. "If
so, remain on board until morning. It's no joke making a five-mile
trip in a steamboat on a pitch-dark night with a sea running."

The lads were delighted at the prospect of the visit. They were both
awfully keen on John Barry; besides, they were rather anxious to see
what sort of command he had. The ship's name was enough to excite
their curiosity. She had evidently arrived later than the _Capella_,
for there was no sign of a craft bearing that name when the
patrol-vessel passed Cromarty on the previous afternoon.

Punctually at seven bells a grey motor-boat dashed up alongside the
_Capella's_ gangway. Shrap, whose instinct told him that his young
master was leaving the ship, anticipated him by making a prodigious
bound from the side into the waiting boat, alighting upon the shoulders
of the coxswain, much to that worthy's astonishment.

"Never mind, sir," replied the man, in answer to Vernon's apologies.
"I've a dog myself at home, very much like this one."

"Let him come with us," suggested Ross. "He'll kick up an awful row if
you don't."

So Shrap, coiled up in the stern-sheets, had his way.

Having received the midshipmen, the boat turned and threshed its way in
the teeth of a strong easterly breeze.

"Yes, sir, that's the _Hunbilker_," replied the coxswain in answer to
Vernon's query, as a large grey shape loomed through the twilight.

"By Jove!" ejaculated Ross, absolutely taken aback. "She's a whopper.
Old Barry's got a battleship. If she isn't a sister ship to the
_Tremendous_, I'm a----"

Fortunately for him, Ross refrained from saying what he might be, for
as things turned out he was wrong. The _Hunbilker_ commenced her
career as a 6000-ton merchantman, but no one would recognize her as
such.

In all probability, but for the war, she would have ended her career as
such. But the Navy required her for a certain purpose, and loyally the
old tramp stepped into the breach. When, after a lapse of nine weeks,
she emerged from the repairing basin, her disguise was complete. She
looked to be what she was not. It is, therefore, no cause for
wonderment that the two midshipmen were deceived by the enormous
outlines of what appeared to be a formidable unit of the British Navy.
The _Hunbilker_ was, in short, a maritime ass