“I wonder if we will ever see this place again?”
“I doubt it—that is, unless there is another revolution.”
“Oh, I guess they’ve got fighting enough for the present.”
“Maybe we’ll see some other countries, more interesting than this. I’d like to go to Europe, and to Japan and China, and I’d like to see Africa too.”
“Wow! Why don’t you include the North Pole and Australia while you are at it,” came with a laugh. “Warships like this don’t travel just any old place. It costs too much money.”
“Oh, I know that. Just the same I’d like to see other countries, especially those that are well built up. This is only a one-horse affair.”
Slowly the great anchors of the _Georgetown_ came out of the bay as the steam winches wound up the big chains. Ned and Frank were on duty forward as the immense hooks came to the surface.
Something on one of the flukes caught Frank’s eye. It looked like a bunch of seaweed, but when he glanced a second time he saw what it was, and cried out.
“Ned! Ned! Great guns, Ned! Look at that! It’s the tin box! The tin box Bernardo’s man threw out of the boat. It caught on the fluke of the anchor and was brought up from the bottom of the bay! Great guns! Don’t let it get away again! It’s the box with the papers that may free Uncle Phil!” and he fairly hopped up and down.
Frank Arden was so excited when he saw, caught by the binding ropes, on the great warship’s anchor, the mysterious box that might mean so much to him and his brother and uncle, that he would have sprung over the side of the _Georgetown_ and caught at the anchor. Indeed, he made a motion in that direction, but a sailor nearby stopped him.
“Wait a bit, me lad,” he said. “I’m in charge of hoistin’ th’ mud-hook, an’ I’ll have it stopped if there’s somethin’ on it that ye want.”
He was a genial Irishman, and, as he said, he was there to pass the signals to the operator of the steam winch when the anchor had been hoisted high enough. In a quick manner, though he did not know all of the story of our heroes, he had grasped the situation. In another moment the anchor hung stationary over the side of the battleship.
It was near enough the deck for Frank to scramble over the side and down the great links of the chain. Some one passed him a rope with a hook on the end—he was so excited he did not know who it was—and he managed to catch the hook in the ropes wound about the box, and so haul it up.