One bleak morning the starboard watch was on duty.  We of the port watch had turned in at four (or, according to ship’s time, eight bells).  We were glad to be between decks, and got under way for the land of Nod without delay.  It seemed as if we had been asleep but a few minutes, when “Scully,” chief boatswain’s mate, came down the gun deck gangway, shouting loud enough to be heard a mile away:  “All hands, up all hammocks;” then, as the disposition to get up was not very evident, “Show a leg there; ham and eggs for breakfast.”  This last was a little pleasantry that never materialized into the much-coveted and long abstained from delicacy.

The hammocks were lashed up and stowed away in the “nettings,” as the lattice-like receptacles are called, leaving the deck clear for the work of the day.

Mess gear for the “watch below” had just been piped, and we were glad; even the thought of burnt oatmeal and coffee without milk was pleasant to us.

The ports were closed and the gun deck was dark and dismal.  The fog oozed in through every crack and cranny, and all was very unpleasant.

Of a sudden there was a sharp reverberation that sounded so much like the report of a big gun that all hands jumped.

The course of the ship was changed, and the jingle bell sounded.  The “Yankee” forged on at full speed in the direction from which the sound had come.

We all stood in expectant attitudes, listening for another report.  We had about made up our minds that our ears had deceived us, when another explosion, louder and nearer than the first, reached us.

On we rushed—­toward what we knew not—­through a fog so thick that the water could be seen but dimly from the spar deck.

The suspense was hard to bear, and the desire to do something almost irresistible.  The men unconsciously took their regular stations for action, the guns’ crews gathered round their guns, the powder divisions in the neighborhood of the ammunition hoists.

“I wish Potter was here,” said “Stump.”  “I rather think he would be white around the gills.  This sort of business would give him a bad case of ‘cold feet.’”

“Oh, he had ‘cold feet’ a few days after we left New York, and wrote to his friends to get his discharge,” said “Bill.”  “Got it and quit two weeks after we left New York, the duffer,” added “Hay.”

The “Yankee” still steamed on into the bank of fog.

“Cupid,” the ship’s bugler, began to play the call for general quarters, but was stopped by a sharp command from the bridge.

What was it all about?  Was it to be tragedy or farce?

Then Scully came down the starboard gangway, a broad smile on his ruddy face.

A clamoring group gathered round him instantly.  “What is it?” “Is the ‘old man’ playing a joke on us?” “Do you suppose Cervera has got over to this side?” “Scully,” overwhelmed with questions, put up his hands protestingly.