e he had taken ten steps the shrill
blast of a bugle suddenly broke the stillness of the night. The
discordant notes rang and echoed through the ship, and, while the sound
was still trembling in the air, two score of shadowy figures sprang up
from different parts of the deck and scurried toward the ladders leading
below.

The transformation was instant and complete.

From a ship stealthily pursuing its way through the darkness--a part of
the mist--the "Yankee" became the theatre of a scene of the most intense
activity.

There was no shouting, no great clamor of sound; nothing but the
peculiar shuffling of shoes against iron, the hard panting of hurrying
men, the grating of breech-blocks, low muttered orders from officer to
man, and a multitude of minor noises that seemed strange and weird and
uncanny in this blackness.

A belated wardroom boy, still carrying a towel across his arm, slips
from the cabin and hastens forward to his station in the powder
division. The navigator, an officer of the regular navy, whose ideas of
discipline are based on cast iron rules, espies the laggard and
administers a sharp rebuke. A squad of marines dash from the "barracks"
below and line up at the secondary battery guns on the forecastle. Some
of the marines are hatless and coatless, and one wiry little private
shambles along on one foot. He stumbles against a hatch-coaming and
kicks his shoe across the deck.

Suddenly an order comes out of the gloom near the main hatch and is
carried from gun to gun.

"Cast loose and provide!"

The hitherto motionless figures waiting at the battery spring into
activity. Hands move nimbly at the training and elevating gear.
Breech-blocks are thrown open, sights adjusted, the first and second
captains take their places, the former with the firing lanyard in
readiness for use at his gun; then there is silence again as the officer
in charge of the division holds up one hand as a signal that all is
prepared. Then comes the word to load.

In a twinkling the ammunition hoists are creaking with their burdens and
boxes of shell appear on deck. These are quickly lifted to the guns and
taken in hand by the loaders. The latter do their part of the general
work thoroughly and with despatch, and presently the breech-blocks are
swung to and the battery is ready for action.

In the meantime there has been systematic preparation in other parts of
the auxiliary cruiser. Down in the sick bay aft, the surgeon an