regardless of oil.

"Holmes! Well, I didn't guess you were here! Shake again!"

It was Lieutenant-Commander Holmes, Assistant Engineer, who, with several subordinate officers, two of them from the Academy, had been detached by the Navy Department to watch the trip of the Retvizan and report upon it. They mingled freely with the Russian engineers, and compared notes with them as the trial progressed.

Norman Holmes explained this to the young reporter, who was an old and tried friend.

"Where is Rexdale stationed?"

"He's doing shore duty in Washington just now. Between you and me, Fred, I think he'll be a lieutenant-commander before long, and may command one of the smaller vessels on this station—a despatch-boat or something of the kind. I only wish I could be assigned to the same ship! You know Dave and I were chums in the Academy."

"I know. And the trifling circumstance of each marrying the other's sister hasn't tended to produce a coldness, I suppose! But isn't that an awfully quick promotion for Rexdale? The last I heard of him he was only a lieutenant."

"Well, we've built so many new ships lately," said Holmes, with his eye on the steam gauge, "that it has been hard work to man them. Two or three classes have been graduated at the Academy two years ahead of time, and promotions have been rapid all along the line. The man that commanded the gunboat Osprey, for instance, is now on an armoured cruiser, taking the place of an officer who has been moved up to the battleship Arizona, and so on. Why, in the course of ten years or more I may be a commander—who knows?" he added, with a laugh.

"I suppose you hear from 'Sandy' and—what did you fellows call Tickerson?"

"'Girlie'? Oh, yes, I hear from them. Both are in the East somewhere. Sandy's last letter was from Guam. He's a lieutenant now, and so is Tickerson."

"Well, I mustn't stay here, bothering you. There's a queer crowd on board—a mixed lot. Seen those little Japs?"

"No. What are they here for?"

"Oh, just waiters. But it's odd to see Japanese on a Russian man-of-war, considering that—hullo, here's one of them, now!"

Sure enough, a small, white-aproned figure came daintily picking his way down into the jarring, clanging, oily engine-room. He seemed a bit troubled to find two of its occupants regarding him intently, as he stepped upon the iron floor.

"Mist' Johnson no here?" he asked innocently, gazing around him.

"Johnson? No, not that I know of," replied Holmes. "What's his position."

"He—he from Boston," said the Jap, after a slight hesitation.

"Look here," broke in Larkin, in his offhand way, "what's your name, young fellow?"

The steward looked into the reporter's frank, kindly face, then answered, "Oto."

"Oto," repeated Fred. "That's a nice easy name to pronounce, if it is Japanese. Well, Oto, how about your chum—what's his name?"

"Oshima. We from Japan."

"So I suspected," laughed Fred. "Been over long?"

The boy looked puzzled.

"When did you leave home?"

Oto shook his head. "Un'erstan' ver' leetle English," he said.

"Well, run along and find Mr. Johnson, of Boston. Norman, good-bye. I'll look in on you again before the end of the trip. Where did Oto go?"

The little Jap had melted away—whether upward or downward, no one could say, he had vanished so quickly.

Larkin shook his head and made a few cabalistic curves and dots in his note-book, then reascended the stairs to the upper deck. Through a winding staircase in a hollow mast he made his way to one of the fighting-tops. Singularly enough the other Japanese waiter, Oshima, was there before him. As Fred emerged on the circular platform, the boy thrust a scrap of paper under the folds of his jacket and hurried down toward the deck. Again the reporter made a note in his book, and then gave a few moments to the magnificent view of the ship and the open sea through which it was cleaving its way.

Directly before and below him lay the forward deck of the Retvizan, cleared almost as completely as if for action. Most of the visitors had withdrawn from the keen wind to the shelter of the cabin, where, doubtless, the question of luncheon was already exciting interest. Beneath the fighting-top was the bridge, where the highest officials on the ship were watching her progress. Just beyond was the forward turret, with its projecting guns, their muzzles peacefully closed.

The vessel now reached the first stake-boat once more, and turning, again started over the course at half-speed, for the tedious process of standardising the screw; that is, determining how many revolutions went to a given rate of speed. The engineers were busy with their calculations. Larkin joined the hungry crowd in the cabin, giving a last look at the blue sea, the misty shore line, and the dim bulk of Agamenticus reared against the western sky.

When the Retvizan passed Cape Ann, on her homeward trip, the great lamps on Thatcher's Island were alight, and the waves sparkled in the glow. It was nearly nine o'clock that evening when the chains rattled through the hawse-holes, in the lower harbour, as the battleship came to anchor. Many had been the guesses as to her speed. Had she come up to her builders' expectations? Had she passed the test successfully? These were the questions that flew to and fro among the passengers, crowding about the gangway beneath which the tug was soon rising and falling. At the last moment the approximate result of the engineers' calculations was given out. The ship had responded nobly to the demand upon her mighty machinery. Splendidly built throughout, perfectly equipped for manslaughter and for the protection of her crew, obedient to the lightest touch of the master-hand that should guide her over the seas in warfare or in peace, the Retvizan had shown herself to be one of the swiftest and most powerful war-ships in the world. For twenty miles, in the open ocean, she had easily made a little over eighteen knots an hour.

In the confusion of going on board the tug and disembarking in the darkness, no one observed the two Japanese waiters, who must have forgotten even to ask for their wages. Certain it is that Oto and Oshima were among the very first to land on the Boston wharf, and to disappear in one of the gloomy cross-streets that branch off from Atlantic Avenue.

CHAPTER II. "MAN OVERBOARD!"

"Well, we're out of the harbour safely, Captain," said Executive Officer Staples with a sigh of relief, as he spread out the chart of the Massachusetts coast and glanced at the "tell-tale" compass. "No more trouble till we get down by the Pollock Rip Shoals."

"Anybody would think you had been taking a battleship out from under the enemy's guns," laughed Lieutenant-Commander David Rexdale. "Don't talk about 'trouble,' Tel., while it's daylight, off a home port, in good weather!"

The two were standing in the chart-room, just behind the bridge of the U. S. gunboat Osprey, as the vessel, leaving Boston Outer Light behind, headed slightly to the south of east. Rexdale, as his old chum Holmes had predicted, was now in command of the Osprey, and was taking her to Washington for a practice trip, on which the crew would be drilled in various manœuvres, including target-practice. Lieutenant Richard Staples, his executive, had been the captain's classmate at Annapolis. He was lanky and tall, and at the Academy had soon gained the