“Our attention? After all the attention we’ve given ’er, too,” said Pyecroft. “What a greedy old woman!” To Moorshed: “Signal from the _Cryptic_, Sir.” “Never mind that!” said the boy, peering through his glasses. “Our dinghy quick, or they’ll paint our marks out. Come along!” By this time I was long past even hysteria. I remember Pyecroft’s bending back, the surge of the driven dinghy, a knot of amazed faces as we skimmed the _Cryptic’s_ ram, and the dropped jaw of the midshipman in her whaler when we barged fairly into him. “Mind my paint!” he yelled. “You mind mine, snotty,” said Moorshed. “I was all night putting these little ear-marks on you for the umpires to sit on. Leave ’em alone.” We splashed past him to the _Devolution’s_ boat, where sat no one less than her first lieutenant, a singularly unhandy-looking officer. “What the deuce is the meaning of this?” he roared, with an accusing forefinger. “You’re sunk, that’s all. You’ve been dead half a tide.” “Dead, am I? I’ll show you whether I’m dead or not, Sir!” “Well, you may be a survivor,” said Moorshed ingratiatingly, “though it isn’t at all likely.” The officer choked for a minute. The midshipman crouched up in stern said, half aloud: “Then I _was_ right—last night.” “Yesh,” I gasped from the dinghy’s coal-dust. “Are you member Torquay Yacht Club?” “Hell!” said the first lieutenant, and fled away. The _Cryptic’s_ boat was already at that cruiser’s side, and semaphores flicked zealously from ship to ship. We floated, a minute speck, between the two hulls, while the pipes went for the captain’s galley on the _Devolution_. “That’s all right,” said Moorshed. “Wait till the gangway’s down and then board her decently. We oughtn’t to be expected to climb up a ship we’ve sunk.” Pyecroft lay on his disreputable oars till Captain Malan, full-uniformed, descended the _Devolution’s_ side. With due compliments—not acknowledged, I grieve to say—we fell in behind his sumptuous galley, and at last, upon pressing invitation, climbed, black as sweeps all, the lowered gangway of the _Cryptic_. At the top stood as fine a constellation of marine stars as ever sang together of a morning on a King’s ship. Every one who could get within earshot found that his work took him aft. I counted eleven able seamen polishing the breechblock of the stern nine-point-two, four marines zealously relieving each other at the life-buoy, six call-boys, nine midshipmen of the watch, exclusive of naval cadets, and the higher ranks past all census. “If I die o’ joy,” said Pyecroft behind his hand, “remember I died forgivin’ Morgan from the bottom of my ’eart, because, like Martha, we ’ave scoffed the better part. You’d better try to come to attention, Sir.”