"If it hadn't been for that lucky fog, she'd have looked more familiar yet," declared Bill. "Look, they're lowering a boat."
From the cruiser's side a small boat, crowded with uniformed sailors, and in the stern sheets of which sat a smart junior officer, dropped and, propelled by long, even strokes of the oars which rose and fell in perfect unison, was presently coming toward the liner. The _St. Mark's_ accommodation ladder was lowered, and in a few minutes the young British officer was aboard.
Every passenger was lined up in the saloon and compelled to answer questions as to their nationality, etc. All passed satisfactorily. Then came the turn of the second cabin and the steerage. From the second cabin, two admitted German reservists were taken as prisoners of war and in the steerage six more were found. They took their apprehensions stoically, although they knew that they would probably be confined at Halifax or Bermuda till the close of hostilities.
Jack and Bill Raynor watched these scenes with interest.
"I suppose it will be months, maybe years, before some of those poor fellows see their homes again," said Bill.
"Yes, but it's what you might call the fortune of war," responded Jack briefly.
So expeditiously was the work of culling out the reservists done that an hour after the _Berwick's_ officers had boarded the liner, the last of the prisoners was off and the ship's papers had been inspected and O.K.'d. With mutual salutes, the two craft parted, the _Berwick_ to lie "off and on," looking for commerce carriers of a hostile nation, the _St. Mark_ to resume her voyage to a Europe which was even then crowded with desperate, stranded American tourists unable to obtain money or passage home.
At dinner time Muller, the _St. Mark's_ regular operator, relieved Jack, and he was free for the evening. He elected to spend his leisure time reading up in a text-book, lately issued, an account of the workings of a new coherer that had recently been brought out.
But the fatigues of the day had made him drowsy and he soon dropped off to sleep in the chair he had placed on the upper deck in the shelter of a big ventilator. Despite the time of year there was a cool, almost a chilly breeze stirring, and most of the small number of first-class passengers were either in the smoking room or the saloon.