Hawkins."

"Well, perhaps it would be the best, sir; for a puff that one
thinks nothing of, one way or the other, when a craft has way; will
take her over wonderfully when it catches her becalmed."

Just as he had finished his dinner, the captain came down and asked
Frank to come on deck.

"There is a steamer bearing down on us. I can see both her side
lights, and as she is coming in from the west she may not notice
our starboard light. It is burning all right, but one never can see
these green lights. They are the deceivingest things at a distance.
I have just sent down for the man to bring up the riding light, and
as it is a first-rate one, if we put it on deck it will light up
the mainsail. I have told them to bring up the big horn. That ought
to waken them if anything will."

"How far is she off now, Hawkins?"

"About a mile and a half, Major. There are no signs of her altering
her course, as she ought to have done by this time if she had made
us out. You see, her head light shows up fair and square between
her side lights, which shows that she is coming as near as possible
on to us. I think that I had better light a blue light."

Frank nodded. The blue light at once blazed out.

"They ought to see that if they are not all asleep," Frank said, as
he looked up at the sails standing out white against the dark sky.

"Set to work with that foghorn," the skipper said; and a man began
to work the bellows of a great foghorn, which uttered a roar that
might have been heard on a still night many miles away. Again and
again the roar broke out.

"That has fetched them," the captain said. "She is starboarding her
helm to go astern of us. There, we have lost her red light, so it
is all right. How I should have liked to have been behind the
lookout or the officer of the watch with a marlinespike or a
capstan bar. I will warrant that they would not have nodded when on
watch again for a long time to come.

"Here she comes; she is closer than I thought she was. She will
pass within fifty yards of the stern. It is lucky that we had that
big horn, Major Mallett, for if we had not woke them up when we did
she would have run us down to a certainty."

As the steamer came along, scarcely more than a length astern of
the yacht, a yell of execration broke from the sailors gathered
forward.

"That was a near shave, George," Frank Mallett said, when the
steamer had passed. "It brought me out in a cold sweat at the
thought tha