nto a hornet's nest. If a single one of
those craft on the horizon recognizes this boat and can wireless the
nearest station, we'll be surrounded to-morrow."

But, as it happened, they were not recognized, though they took
desperate chances in charging through a coasting fleet in daylight. And
at nightfall Jenkins gave the order for full speed.

CHAPTER XX

For an hour Denman remained with Florrie to witness the unusual
spectacle of a forty-knot destroyer in a hurry.

The wind was practically gone, though a heavy ground swell still met the
boat from the northwest; and as there was no moon, nor starlight, and as
all lights were out but the white masthead and red and green side
lights, invisible from aft, but dimly lighting the sea ahead, the sight
presented was unusual and awe-inspiring.

They seemed to be looking at an ever-receding wall of solid blackness,
beneath which rose and spread from the high bow, to starboard and port,
two huge, moving snowdrifts, lessening in size as the bow lifted over
the crest of a sea it had climbed, and increasing to a liquid avalanche
of foam that sent spangles up into the bright illumination of the
masthead light when the prow buried itself in the base of the next sea.

Astern was a white, self-luminous wake that narrowed to a point in the
distance before it had lost its phosphorescent glow.

Florrie was interested only in the glorious picture as a whole. Denman,
equally impressed, was interested in the somewhat rare spectacle of a
craft meeting at forty knots a sea running at twenty; for not a drop of
water hit the deck where they stood.

They went below at last; but Denman, having slept nearly all day, was
long in getting to sleep. A curious, futile, and inconsequential thought
bothered him--the thought that the cheerful Billings had ceased his
singing in the galley.

The monotonous humming of the turbines brought sleep at last; but he
awakened at daylight from a dream in which Billings, dressed in a Mother
Hubbard and a poke bonnet, was trying to force a piece of salt-water
soap into his mouth, and had almost succeeded when he awoke. But it was
the stopping of the turbines that really had wakened him; and he dressed
hurriedly and went on deck.

There was nothing amiss. No one was in sight but Jenkins, who leaned
lazily against the bridge rail. In the dim light that shone, nothing
could be seen on the horizon or within it.

So, a little ashamed of his uncalled-for curio