ate of
two or three knots an hour, drew near the spot where it was expected
that the strangers would be discovered. The men stood at their guns
prepared to open the ports and run them out when the order should be
given. The magazines were open and powder and shot passed up. The
surgeon and his assistants were below in the cockpit, making their
arrangements for the duties they might have to perform; looking to their
instruments, their bandages and styptics, and rigging their
amputation-table.

"How do you feel, Paul?" asked Dickenson of young Chandos. "If we could
see the enemy I shouldn't mind; but, for my part, I don't like this sort
of work in the dark, I confess."

"I was thinking of home and my mother and sisters," answered Chandos.
"I used to long to be in a battle, and I should be sorry to miss it, but
I wish it was over. I would rather have to look back at it than
forward."

"So would I, provided I hadn't lost an arm or a leg or been killed
outright," said Dickenson, in a dolorous tone.

"I haven't thought about being killed, and I hope that neither you nor I
will be," answered Chandos; adding, "I shouldn't mind, perhaps, a bullet
through my arm or leg for the honour and glory of the thing, and to talk
about when we get home."

"I'm sure I don't want any such honour and glory, and I wish you
wouldn't speak about such things," groaned out Dickenson. "Perhaps we
shan't have a fight after all."

"I hope we shall, though," exclaimed his more plucky messmate; "that is
to say if it does not last too long. I could hold out for an hour or
so, but then I think I should begin to wish it was over."

"Beg pardon, young gentlemen; you'd hold out better after the first hour
than for the first five minutes," observed old Jacob Crane, who had
overheard the conversation. "Just let us exchange a couple of
broadsides and you'd think no more about the matter than if you were
snowballing each other. I know the stuff you're made of too well to
doubt that."

"Thank you, Crane, for the compliment," said Chandos; "but do you think
we shall have a fight?"

"Sure on't," answered the old man; "just look out over the larboard bow
and you'll see three ships hove to, and some bright lights in the stern
of the biggest of them. She's a lumping frigate if she isn't something
larger, and though our signal has been hoisted some time she hasn't
answered it."

The midshipmen, whose eyes were not so well accustomed to pierce th