pt Munson,
buried in his wireless room, and one engineer on duty--was inaugurated
and continued through the day.

Their natty blue uniforms discarded, they toiled and perspired at the
task; and when, toward the end of the afternoon, old Kelly decided that
they could be depended upon to fire a gun or eject a torpedo, Jenkins
decreed that they should get on deck and lash to the rail in their
chocks four extra torpedoes.

As there was one in each tube, this made eight of the deadliest weapons
of warfare ready at hand; and when the task was done they quit for the
day, the deck force going to the bridge for a look around the empty
horizon, the cooks to the galley, and the machinists to the engine room.

Denman, who with doubt and misgiving had watched the day's preparations,
led Florrie down the companion.

"They're getting ready for a mix of some kind; and there must be some
place to put you away from gun fire. How's this?"

He opened a small hatch covered by the loose after edge of the cabin
carpet, and disclosed a compartment below which might have been designed
for stores, but which contained nothing, as a lighted electric bulb
showed him. Coming up, he threw a couple of blankets down, and said:

"There's a cyclone cellar for you, Florrie, below the water line. If
we're fired upon jump down, and don't come up until called, or until
water comes in."

Then he went to his room for the extra store of cartridges he had
secreted, but found them gone. Angrily returning to Florrie, he asked
for her supply; and she, too, searched, and found nothing. But both
their weapons were fully loaded.

"Well," he said, philosophically, as they returned to the deck, "they
only guaranteed us the privilege of carrying arms. I suppose they feel
justified from their standpoint."

But on deck they found something to take their minds temporarily off the
loss. Sampson, red in the face, was vociferating down the engine-room
hatch.

"Come up here," he said, loudly and defiantly. "Come up here and prove
it, if you think you're a better man than I am. Come up and square
yourself, you flannel-mouthed mick."

The "flannel-mouthed mick," in the person of Riley, white of face rather
than red, but with eyes blazing and mouth set in an ugly grin, climbed
up.

It was a short fight--the blows delivered by Sampson, the parrying done
by Riley--and ended with a crashing swing on Riley's jaw that sent him
to the deck, not to rise for a few moments.