We soon learned that this was Block Island.
The gig was lowered, and the captain and mail orderly went ashore.
"Now we'll get our real orders," said Potter. "Ho! for the Spanish main," he shouted, forgetting his narrow escape of the day before.
"It will be Ho! for the ship's brig, and Ho! for five days on bread and water, if you don't look out," said "Stump," dryly.
About dark, the gig came back again, bringing the captain in it and the mail orderly--but no mail, and how we did long for a word from home. A scrap of newspaper, even, would be a blessing.
We had just sat down to evening mess when the order, "All hands on the gig falls!" was given, and the master-at-arms chased us off the gun deck. Soon the measured tread of many feet could be heard, and then the order was given by the officer of the deck to the coxswain of the gig, "Secure your boat for sea."
Within a short time we were under way again. The usual watches were set, but very few of the boys went below. The mere rumor that the enemy was prowling along the coast was enough to prevent sleep. My watch went on duty at four o'clock. We were not called in the usual way, by the boatswain's whistle, but each man was roused separately. This in itself was sufficient to lend an air of intense interest to the scene.
On reaching the deck I found that the night had grown stormy. A chill wind was blowing off the coast, rendering pea coats and watch caps extremely comfortable. A fine rain began to fall shortly after four, and by the time I had taken my post forward as a lookout it had increased to a regular squall.
The "Yankee" was a splendid sea boat, but in the course of an hour the choppy waves kicked up by the storm set her to bobbing about like the proverbial cork. The gloom of the night had changed to a blackness that made it impossible to see an arm's length away. Standing on the starboard bridge, I could scarcely distinguish the faint white foam gathered under the forefoot. Aft there was nothing visible save a length of stay which seemingly began at nothing and ended in darkness.
The howling of the wind through the taut cordage of the foremast, the sullen plunging of the ship's hull in the trough of the sea, the rise to a wave crest and the poising there before falling once more, the smell of the dank salt air, and the occasional spurt of spray over the leaning bow, all made a scene so novel to me that I forgot Spanish ships and my duty and stood almost entranced.