are having all sorts of
trouble trying to get to the coast," said Lucile, "and now I'm beginning
to realize the truth of what Dad said about being lucky to get off as we
did. Oh, but the cabin is awful!" she sighed, naively.

Jack laughed understandingly. "I guess you must be rather crowded."

"Oh, but we oughtn't to mind anything now that we're out of danger,"
Evelyn broke in.

"Yes; but I'm not so sure we are out of danger," Jack protested. "The
captain's caution seems to show that there is still something to fear."

"You mean we might be captured?" Lucile questioned, eagerly. "That would
be some adventure. You might almost imagine we were living in the Middle
Ages----"

"Lucile," Evelyn was starting to remonstrate, when an excited voice
whispered, huskily, "So you're here, are you?" and two figures loomed
before them out of the mist. "It's I, Phil," said one of them.

"We were wondering where you and Jessie had gone," Lucile began.

"Did you know we nearly ran down a hostile cruiser? At least, that's what
the captain thinks it was," he interrupted, excitedly. "If we had had
lights aboard, they'd have caught us sure, take it from me."

"Which reminds me," said Phil, "that Mother sent me after you girls; she
says it's too damp on deck."

Reluctantly, they turned from the spacious deck to the close, stuffy
atmosphere of the cabin.

Lucile paused at the top step of the companionway to look wistfully up
into Jack's sober eyes. "I--I don't want to go down there," she said.

"And I don't want you to," he replied. Then, with an earnestness that
left no doubt of his sincerity, "Lucile, I'd give a lot right now to have
you safe on shore."

CHAPTER XXVII

HOME

The sun rose gloriously golden, dispelling the stubborn mist with an army
of riotous sunbeams, that danced and shimmered over the waves in wild
defiance of threatening wind and lowering sky. The decks and railings of
the steamer, still wet from the clinging mist, shone and gleamed and
sparkled in the sun like one gigantic diamond. Even the sailors sang as
they worked, and one of them went so far as to attempt a sailor's
hornpipe on the slippery deck, to the great amusement of his mates.

The girls had slept but little during the long night, and even when, from
sheer exhaustion, they had dropped off into a troubled doze, weird,
distorted fancies came to torment them into wakefulness, to stare,
wide-eyed and fearful, into the inky blackness of the