down like the rush of
a great storm. A roar as of the unchained wind leaped upward from those
banked and crowding masses. It swelled louder and louder, deafening,
inarticulate. A vast bellow of exultation split the gray, low-hanging
heavens. Erect plumes of steam shot upward from the ferry and excursion
boats, but the noise of their whistles was lost and drowned in the
reverberation of that mighty and prolonged clamour. But suddenly the
indeterminate thunder was pierced and dominated by a sharp and
deep-toned report, and a jet of white smoke shot out from the flanks of
the battleship. Her guns had spoken. Instantly and from another quarter
of her hull came another jet of white smoke, stabbed through with its
thin, yellow flash, and another abrupt clap of thunder shook the windows
of the City.

The boats that all the morning had been moving toward the upper bay were
returning. They came slowly, a veritable fleet, steaming down the bay,
headed for the open sea, beyond the entrance of the harbour, each
crowded and careening to the very gunwales, each whistling with might
and main.

And in their midst--the storm-centre round which this tempest of
acclamation surged, the object on which so many eyes were focussed, the
hope of an entire nation--one ship.

She was small and seemingly pitifully inadequate for the great adventure
on which she was bound; her lines were short and ungraceful. From her
clumsy iron-shod bow to her high, round stern, from her bulging sides to
the summit of her short, powerful masts there was scant beauty in her.
She was broad, blunt, evidently slow in her movements, and in the smooth
waters of the bay seemed out of her element. But, for all that, she
imparted an impression of compactness, the compactness of things dwarfed
and stunted. Vast, indeed, would be the force that would crush those
bulging flanks, so cunningly built, moreover, that the ship must slip
and rise to any too great lateral pressure. Far above her waist rose her
smokestack. Overhead upon the mainmast was affixed the crow's nest.
Whaleboats and cutters swung from her davits, while all her decks were
cumbered with barrels, with crates, with boxes and strangely shaped
bales and cases.

She drew nearer, continuing that slow, proud progress down the bay,
honoured as no visiting sovereign had ever been. The great white
man-of-war dressed ship as she passed, and the ensign at her
fighting-top dipped and rose again. At once there was a