around lively enough. But we shall not have so very much fighting to do
to-day. I heard Mr. Watkins tell the officer of the deck this morning
that this battle will be merely preliminary. When the soldiers get a
foothold on the Island you'll see fun, unless the rebels run away."

"Where is my station in action?" asked Marcy.

"Close at the old man's side, wherever he happens to be," replied the
master's mate. "And I will tell you, for your consolation, that he
always happens to be in the most dangerous place he can find. There he
is on the bridge, and perhaps you had better go up to him."

The bridge was a platform with a railing around it, extending nearly
across the deck just abaft the wheel-house, and when Marcy mounted the
ladder that led up to it, he found himself in a position to see
everything that was going on. The captain was standing there with his
hands in his pockets, but he seemed more like a disinterested spectator
than like a man who was about to take a ship into action, for he had not
a word to say to anybody. He wore a canvas bag by his side, suspended by
a broad strap that passed over his shoulder; and if Marcy could have
looked into it, he would have found that it contained a small book whose
cloth covers were heavily loaded with lead. This was the
signal-book--one of the most important articles in a man-of-war's
outfit. The captain always kept it where he could place his hands upon
it at a moment's notice, and if he found that his vessel was in danger
of being captured, he would have thrown it overboard rather than permit
it to fall into the hands of the enemy.

For the first quarter of an hour or so Marcy Gray had nothing to do but
keep out of the way of the captain, who walked back and forth on the
bridge so that he could see every part of the deck beneath him by simply
turning his head, and watch the gunboats fall into line one after
another. The ease and rapidity with which this was done surprised him.
The several commanders knew their places and got into them in short
order, and without in any way interfering with the vessels around them.
If the inanimate masses of wood and iron they commanded had been
possessed of brains and knew what they were expected to do, they could
not have done it more promptly or with less confusion. It was a fine and
inspiriting sight, and Marcy Gray would have walked twenty miles to see
it any day.

"The flagship is signalling, sir," said a quartermaster who was o