The sailing launch of the _Monongahela_ was a large seaworthy boat, capable of safely carrying twenty men. When it was rowed away from the frigate on this dark night it contained that number in its crew.
The officer in charge was a lieutenant, and he had under his command five seamen, a coxswain and thirteen cadets.
Among the latter were Clif, Trolley and Joy.
“I say, Trolley, isn’t this nice work for Christians to be laboring at?” asked Joy. “Didn’t I tell you that war causes all the trouble in this world? Here we are out in the bosom of the mighty deep, working away like a lot of slaves when we might be comfortable starving at home. I tell you peace is the thing.”
“You fool me one time, my Joy,” he replied. “I think when I first know you that you great boy for peace. But----”
He chuckled, and added, with evident zest:
“You no like to eat more than you like fight. You whip three upper class boys, and not half try. When Clif Faraday say we do more things to third class fellows you roll your eyes and you lick your chop. You what American boys call one big bluff.”
The object of this arraignment laughed and gave an added spurt with his long ashen oar. The launch pitched and rolled in the seas, and steadily forced its way through the blackness.
Far astern twinkled the lights of the practice ship, seeming no larger than star points in the distance.
Overhead the darkness increased, the expanse of sea being banked in by gathering clouds. A breeze, cool and moist with a salty dampness, sprang up, giving a fleeting spray to the edge of the waves.
It was a strange experience to the young naval cadets, this tossing about in an open boat upon a heaving sea whose broad bosom sparkled and glowed with the sheen of phosphorescent lights.
There was something fascinating in it all, something so peculiarly attractive that all wished the signal of recall would be long in coming.
They had been aroused from slumber, the majority of them, and had plunged from the peacefulness of their hammocks into the midst of bustle and wild excitement. They had worked the guns in imitation of battle attack, then, as a fitting climax to all, here they were launched away from the ship with only a few frail planks between them and the remorseless ocean.