cks all
round were alternately presenting sterns and bowsprits to the sky in a
violent manner that might have suggested the idea of a rearing and
kicking dance. When the carrier steamed up to the Admiral, and lay to
beside him, and the smacks drew towards her from all points of the
compass, the mazes of the dance became intricate, and the risk of
collisions called for careful steering.

Being aware of this, and being himself not quite so steady about the
head as he could wish, Skipper Bryce looked at Martin for a few seconds,
and then ordered him to go help to launch the boat and get the trunks
out, and send Phil Morgan aft.

Phil was not a better seaman than Dick, but he was a more temperate man,
therefore clearer brained and more dependable.

Soon the smacks were waltzing and kicking round each other on every
possible tack, crossing and re-crossing bows and sterns; sometimes close
shaving, out and in, down-the-middle-and-up-again fashion, which, to a
landsman, might have been suggestive of the 'bus, cab, and van throng in
the neighbourhood of that heart of the world, the Bank of England.

Sounds of hailing and chaffing now began to roll over the North Sea from
many stentorian lungs.

"What cheer? what cheer?" cried some in passing.

"Hallo, Tim! how are 'ee, old man! What luck?"

"All right, Jim; on'y six trunks."

"Ha! that's 'cause ye fished up a dead man yesterday."

"Is that you, Ted?"

"Ay, ay, what's left o' me--worse luck. I thought your mother was goin'
to keep you at home this trip to mind the babby."

"So she was, boy, but the babby fell into a can o' buttermilk an' got
drownded, so I had to come off again, d'ee see?"

"What cheer, Groggy Fox? Have 'ee hoisted the blue ribbon yet?"

"No, Stephen Lockley, I haven't, nor don't mean to, but one o' the fleet
seems to have hoisted the blue flag."

Groggy Fox pointed to one of the surrounding vessels as he swept past in
the _Cormorant_.

Lockley looked round in haste, and, to his surprise, saw floating among
the smaller flags, at a short distance, the great twenty-feet flag of a
mission vessel, with the letters MDSF (Mission to Deep-Sea Fishermen) on
it, in white on a blue ground.

"She must have lost her reckoning," muttered Lockley, as he tried to
catch sight of the vessel to which the flag belonged--which was not
easy, owing to the crowd of smacks passing to and fro between it and
him.

Just at that moment a hearty cheer was heard to i