hat
coign of vantage, the long-delayed but welcome order, for which we had
all been waiting in expectancy since the morning.

"Hands, up anchor!" he cried in a brave shout, to which the boatswain on
the forecastle gave a shrill response with his whistle, while his mates
re-echoed the cry between decks, up and down the ship fore and aft, "All
hands, up anchor!"

The capstan was again manned below, and the marines and idlers heaved in
the cable to the sound of the drum and fife, as before; although, this
time, the tune was "The Girl I Left Behind Me," the tramp of their feet
coming in every now and again as a sort of chorus to the music, while on
the forecastle above, the boatswain overhauled the catfalls, and got up
the up and down tackle, and the gunner's crew rigged out the fish davit
with its gear.

"The cable's `up and down,' sir," presently reported the boatswain to
"glass-eye," our first lieutenant, who passed the word aft in the usual
manner to the commander on the poop. "Cable's up and down, sir!"

The merry sound of the drum and fife, and steady tramp of the men round
the capstan on the main deck continued until, anon, the boatswain once
again reported to the Honourable Digby Lanyard, as he stood surveying
the progress made in heaving in from the knight heads, "Anchor's
weighed, sir."

This implied that the heavy mass of metal, of some four tons weight, by
which we had been moored, was now off the ground, a fact that increased
the strain on the cable and messenger, taking a longer and a stronger
pull out of those working the capstan, and making the nippers, too, pass
a trifle less briskly than before.

"Anchor's in sight, sir, and a clear anchor, too!" was the next cry from
the forecastle that went from hand to hand aft, causing `The Girl I Left
Behind Me' to come out stronger than previously and the tramping feet to
hasten their measured tread; and, in another minute or so, the ring of
the anchor was chock up to the hawse pipe at the bows, and the boatswain
piped "Belay!"

"Hands make sail!" next came from the commander aft, the midshipmen
stationed in the tops jumping into the rigging and scrambling up the
ratlines before he could shout "Way aloft!"

In an instant, up started the topmen in pursuit, as it seemed, of the
middies in a sort of `follow my leader' chase; and ere the vibration of
the commander's voice had ceased to tremble in the air, the active
fellows were spread out along the footropes