When Arthur and Frank came on deck in answer to Kenneth’s summons, the wind nearly took their heads off—it blew in their ears and deafened them. They found it hard to breathe against it, and its force nearly took them off their pins.

“What’s the trouble, old ma——”

Frank stopped in the middle of the word as he caught sight of the black bulk of the schooner, slowly bearing down upon them. Scarcely twenty feet of worried and wind-swept water separated the two vessels.

Nearer and nearer she came, until, to the excited eyes of the crew, it seemed as if the big boat would swallow the smaller one whole.

The mate went forward, a big clasp knife in hand, to cut the cable, if that extreme move became necessary.

CHESAPEAKE BAY.

Kenneth had shouted to the captain of the schooner at the outset, and all hands were trying everything to stop her backward progress. There was no time to raise sails and beat out of the danger, and it certainly looked as if the “Gazelle” would be crushed like an egg-shell, or else cut adrift to run the very probable chances of being dashed against the spiles of the piers.

It was a strange situation. In the harbor, between two populous cities, Norfolk and Portsmouth; in the midst of a large fleet of seaworthy boats, humming with life, one great bully of a vessel was slowly closing down on a smaller one. Tens of thousands of people almost within call, yet none could stir hand or foot to help. Nor could the crew of either craft do aught to prevent imminent peril.

The “Gazelle” tugged at her moorings, as if she realized the danger, and longed eagerly to be free.

The crew of the schooner hung over the rail aft, watching the narrowing strip of water.

The suspense was tremendous, and each boy showed the effects of it according to his temperament. Kenneth stood with tightly-shut fists and clinched jaws, but otherwise showed no signs of the anxiety he felt; Frank could not keep still, but twitched, rose, and sat down again a hundred times, while the rain ran down the locks of long black hair over his face unheeded; Arthur, who was forward, ready to cut the cables if necessary, was possessed with the desire to do something; he found it hard to wait, and appealed to Kenneth many times to know if he should sever the anchor line.

The movement of the large ship was so gradual that it seemed as if the moment of contact would never arrive. If the end would only come quickly, or if they could do something to end the suspense! Anything would be a relief. They watched with staring eyes the slow approach of the larger vessel—so slow that the movement was scarcely perceptible.

Suddenly, Frank spoke in the startled tone of one who wakes from a nightmare.

“She isn’t moving! The anchor must have caught at last.” The three tried to measure the distance between the boats to see if Frank’s assertion was really true.

“You are right, old man,” Kenneth said at last. “Luck is with us again.”

It was a mighty narrow escape—the space between the two boats could almost be covered by an active jumper.

Later in the day, the schooner which had threatened to crush the yacht was the means by which she was saved from another danger.

It was growing dark when the captain of the schooner hailed the “Gazelle,” and told Kenneth that he wanted to shift his anchorage. The wind was still blowing a gale, and the waves slapped viciously at everything that withstood them.

The “Gazelle” was holding fast to the bottom with two anchors, but when the boys tried to raise the largest, it stuck, and could not be moved, so the end of the cable was buoyed and let go. Immediately the yacht began to drag the anchor that remained, as if it were but a heavy stone, and then drifted swiftly toward the bulkheads of the wharves. Again the possibility of a smash-up confronted them.

“On board the schooner!” Kenneth shouted against the wind in the direction of the larger craft. But the wind carried the words back to him mockingly. Again he shouted: “We’re dragging anchor. Throw us a line; throw us a line!”

It seemed ages before any one appeared; then the face of the captain showed itself. He immediately grasped the situation, and in the nick of time threw a long line to them. Arthur caught it and made it fast, while the captain did likewise on the schooner. Once more the “Gazelle” was saved; she swung on the end of the long rope like the cork on a fish line.

For a week the storm continued; so for many days the captain and crew of the yacht had nothing to do but go sightseeing, to write letters, and play games. Whenever the weather permitted, “His Nibs” was brought alongside, and one or two of the boys went ashore.

On one side of the narrow harbor was Norfolk, one of the big and growing cities of the South. Her docks were filled with ocean-going and coast-wise craft, steamers, and sailing vessels of every rig. Situated on a fine harbor, a point from which railroads radiated, within easy reach of the coal fields and iron mines, and but a short distance from the great ship-building yards at Newport News, it prospered exceedingly. There was little about it that suggested the Southern city, except the multitude of colored people that roamed the streets. Across the stream-like harbor lay Portsmouth, a much smaller place, on a lower scale of development. In its Navy Yard many of the ships that did such good service during the war with Spain were fitted out. Then its shops were kept going day and night; the workmen swarmed like bees in and out of the buildings; and the place resounded with the loud gong-like ring of blows on cavernous boilers, and the sharp tap-tap of the riveters. It was quite different when the boys visited it; many of the shops were closed, and the marines, clad from head to foot in rubber, who paced to and fro in front of the old stone buildings had little to do, for there were few frolicsome jackies to make trouble for them.

Kenneth, Arthur, and Frank visited the shipping, the oyster markets, where hundreds of the trim oyster sloops and schooners were unladen weekly, the Navy Yard; St. Paul’s, the old stone church, built in 1739, which still bore high in its tower the round shot fired into it during the War of 1812, and last, but far from least, the watermelon fleet.

“How’s business?” they inquired interestedly.

“Rotten,” was the reply, and the truth of it was evident in the piles of discarded fruit about.

Great, luscious melons were selling at $3.50 per hundred, and buyers were hard to find at that. Whether the boys went singly or by twos, they always returned laden to their utmost capacity with the great green fruit.

The tenth day after their arrival at Norfolk, Kenneth got up early and in a voice fit to wake the dead, roared: “Up all hands, break yourselves out of your bunks there. This is the day we ‘move de boat’; up all hands.”

The other two got up yawning and stretching, to find the sun streaming warmly through the lights. Breakfast was cooked and eaten, dishes washed and put away, decks scrubbed, brass rubbed, and rigging examined. The bugler aboard the U.S.S. “Texas,” anchored but a short distance off, was just blowing reveille when the boys began to heave on the anchor cable. But it was long after the shrill boatswain’s call to mess had sounded aboard the “Texas” before the “Gazelle’s” crew gave up the task of hauling aboard the anchor. The boys hauled and tugged, till it seemed as if the bow of the “Gazelle” would be pulled down to keep company with the anchor, but not an inch would it budge. It was provoking that when wind and tide favored, and pleasant weather promised, they should be held to land. Kenneth stood with frowning brows looking along the straight cable, while the perspiration stood in beads on his face—gazing as if he would pierce the green-brown flood with his glance, and see what held the mud-hook fast. Arthur and Frank stood by silent and hot—for the sun beat down fiercely; all three were dry of suggestions, for everything had been tried.

“Oh, let’s try once more; then if the pesky thing won’t come up we’ll cut adrift and leave it.” Kenneth was at the end of his patience.

Once more the windlass was set going, and with the aid of three pairs of strong young arms the heavy manila line was tautened until the yacht’s bow was pulled a foot or more below the normal water line; but not an inch would the old anchor budge. But just as the boys were on the point of giving up in desperation, the rollers from a passing tug tossed the yacht and gave an extra heavy pull on the line; then suddenly the yawl regained her level and inch by inch the refractory anchor was yanked up. A great water-soaked log clinging to one of the flukes revealed the cause of the trouble when it reached the surface.

Free at last from the grasp of the land, the “Gazelle” threaded her way past trim, converted yacht-gunboats (which looked little like the venomous terriers of war they were), the grim “Texas,” whose peaceful white coating of paint belied her destructive, death-dealing power, and past the battered “Reina Mercedes,” which, in spite of every effort of her former owner, was destined to become a useful member of Uncle Sam’s Navy. Indeed, yachts, steamers, steamboats, and sailing craft of every description, were passed by the “Gazelle” on her way to the open bay, the famous Hampton Roads. Many hands were waved in salute to the little craft and her sturdy crew, and not less numerous were the toots of the whistles which greeted them, for the fame of their trip had spread until the little white yawl was almost as well known to the shipping population as the members of the white squadron.

When the sun of August 22d sent its last rays over the beautiful Hampton Roads, the “Gazelle” had rounded Old Point Comfort and left the picturesque old Fortress Monroe astern.

Long after sundown, the “Gazelle” wended her way up the broad Chesapeake Bay, one of a thousand craft that sped over its smooth waters. Soon, the moon rose in perfect splendor, and as the boys sat in the cockpit, spellbound by the beauty of the scene, they saw a great Baltimore clipper, square rigged, every sail spread, come sailing down the broad path of moonlight; leaning a trifle to the strength of the breeze, every sail rounded out and bathed in silvery light, her keen prow turning the phosphorescent waves like a ploughshare; she made one of the finest pictures mortal man ever beheld—a sight that made the boys’ sailor-blood stir within them, and they stood spellbound until the great ship swept majestically by, silent, except for the splash of the waves as she spurned them aside, or for the creak of a block under the strain of swelling canvas.

Till long after midnight, the yacht held her course—sailing by the light of the moon; then she dropped anchor in one of the innumerable indentations that mark the coast line of the b............