in through the hatchway, "they're
coming after us. We shall yet be saved."

"Get out!" answered the parrot in a shrill screaming voice.

Dan dropped the hatchway, straightened up and shading his eyes as he
gazed off across the waste of waters. Just then he caught sight of
another of those sharp flashes that he had taken for lightning. This
time he saw that the flash had come directly from the battleship
itself. At the same instant he experienced another of those terrific
shocks, this one sending him staggering to the rail.

The truth suddenly dawned upon him.

"They are shooting at me!" he gasped. "But why are they doing that
terrible thing?"

Dan pondered over this for a full moment.

"I know," he cried. "They are trying to sink the schooner, to get her
out of the way, so that no other ship will run into her in the
darkness. Well, I certainly am in a fine fix. Not being able to drown
myself in a respectable way, the ship has come to my help by shooting
at me. I wonder what gun they are doing it with? It must be the
twelve-inch, judging----"

"Bang! Crash!"

"There she goes again."

The schooner heeled until the lad was sure that she was going to turn
turtle. The Battleship Boy felt a shiver running up and down his spine.

"If I had a light I might signal them and attract their attention. I
don't believe they are able to pick me up with the searchlight. If
they saw me they surely would not keep on shooting at me."

Dan hastened to the cabin below. There was not a lantern to be found
so he grabbed up the cuddy lamp and ran to the deck with it. The
instant he reached the deck the wind blew the light out.

The boy put the lamp down on the deck and crept over to the port rail
which was the side nearest to the distant battleship.

Once more the seven-inch gun let go, the projectile going just a little
high and cutting a gash in the deck as it went screaming over, losing
itself in the sea off to starboard somewhere.

"About six feet nearer, and my name would have been Dennis," muttered
the lad.

He remembered, afterwards, that he had not experienced any feeling of
fear. The sensation of being under fire, and that with the knowledge
that a battleship was trying to sink the vessel under him, filled him
with awe and curiosity. Dan found himself wondering just how long it
would take for the guns of the warship to put the schooner under. Had
she not been loaded with lumber the schooner no doub