When all the British officers had fought themselves into a state of collapse, a hulking young midshipman who was roosting precariously on two legs of the lounging chair under which the Commander was imprisoned, gave vent to his exultation by taking in a lungful of air and expending it in the blood-curdling Maori war-cry, which he had learned in his New Zealand home before he joined the Navy. That gave the visitors a chance to get in the running again, and, putting their heads close together and beating out the rhythm with their fists, they fairly started the rivets on the wardroom ceiling with the thunderous bark of the Navy yell. The Maori war-whoop was like the chirping of a cricket in comparison. Wide-eyed with wonder and admiration, the British officers relaxed the death grips in which they had been holding each other, and gathered near to see at close range how the big noise was made. The Gunnery Lieutenant slipped away for a moment, presently to reappear wearing his "ear-defenders." "Always use 'em when the big stuff is firing," he explained; "when do we start the next run?" Nothing would do but that the officers of H.M.S. "----" should be taught the Yankee Navy yell. A class was formed then and there, and lessons were in full swing an hour later when the Officer of the Watch poked his head timidly inside the door to announce that the boat for the American officers had been standing-by for twenty minutes, but that he had been waiting for a pause in the singing to report it. He was a serious-looking little Sub, that Officer of the Watch, and I never could make quite sure whether he thought it was really singing (perhaps a new kind of Yankee ragtime) he was interrupting or not. Ducking under hammocks in which restive would-be sleepers were stirring, we filed up the ladder and came out into the frosty air of the quarterdeck to speed the parting guests. Good-nights were spoken softly in deference to the Captain, whose sleeping cabin was just beneath our feet, and the four cloaked officers tip-toed gently down the gangway and aboard their waiting launch. Then the Commander passed a quietly spoken order down the line along the rail. "Ready now; altogether. One--two--three!" With the sudden roar of a full gun salvo, the Navy yell boomed out on the still air and went rolling forth across the still waters to set strange echoes chattering in the distant hills. A sudden surge of quickly suppressed laughter floated back to us from the receding launch, but the visiting officers were on their good behaviour once they were "out in the open" again, and the challenge was not taken up.