Their work was completed at length, and Frenchy crept out into the passage to look about. There was nobody in this part of the ship save themselves.
The two mischievous youths tugged the result of their labor out to the ash-chute. The time was propitious. The battleship and the auxiliary were approaching each other and signals were being exchanged. Captain Trevor was on the quarterdeck and word was passed that target practice would immediately begin. In a moment Frenchy and Ikey darted out on deck and joined their mates without being observed by the master-at-arms. Whistler and Al Torrance were already hovering about their stations. If the guns of Number Two turret got a chance, they hoped to have a hand in the manipulation of them.
Suddenly there came a hail from the masthead:
The boy up there ran his cry altogether in his excitement. The navigating officer replied.
"Submarine astern, sir! Can see the periscope bobbing, sir!" was the statement that changed the entire atmosphere of the battleship from that of mere curiosity and interest to the wildest excitement.
The thing the lookout had spied bobbing in the sea was not exactly in the wake of the battleship, for those who rushed to the port rail could see it quite well. It wabbled about in a most eccentric way, as though the submarine attached to it had risen just as the _Kennebunk_ passed and had received the full force of her swell.
"Jingo! that's a funny lookin' periscope," drawled one second-class seaman, a new recruit, craning his long neck to see over the heads of the group which Frenchy and Ikey had joined.
"What did you think they'd look like?" demanded another.
"Something like a smokestack with a curlycue on the end of it," was the reply.
Frenchy and Ikey were giggling immeasurably. The former said: "Isa Bopp couldn't beat that, could he?"
"Oi, oi!" sighed Ikey ecstatically. "A periscope like a smokestack!"
But more than this new recruit aboard the _Kennebunk_ began to doubt the validity of the bobbing thing in the water astern. The big battleship was being swerved to bring the port broadside to bear upon the now distant object. The bugle rang for stations. The sudden activity of the whole ship's company was inspiring.