A BATTLE ON A SMALL SCALE  
"On deck!" shouted the lookout at the foremast head. "Light on the starboard bow!"
 
"Silence, all!" cried the commander, as soon as he heard the hail from aloft. "Go forward, Mr. Pennant, silence the hands, and direct the lookout to hail in lower tones."
 
The third lieutenant sprang forward to obey the order, and Christy followed him at a more moderate pace, consistent with his dignity as the officer highest in rank on board. It was not so much a question of dignity, however, with him as it was the intention to preserve his self-possession. A light had been reported on the starboard bow; but Christy had no more means of knowing what it meant than any other person on deck. It suggested a blockade runner, a battery, or a house near the shore where he did not expect to find one.
 
203 The captain went on the bridge; but he could not see the light. He descended to the deck, and then mounted the fore-rigging. The lookout saw him, and said he could not see the light any longer; it had been in sight a couple of minutes, and then had disappeared. It was useless to look for it if gone, and Christy returned to the bridge, where Mr. Pennant was attentively studying the compass.
 
"In what direction is the head of the steamer pointed, Mr. Pennant?" he asked as he joined the lieutenant.
 
"Exactly north-east, sir," replied Mr. Pennant.
 
"Then the report of the light on the starboard bow places it directly to the eastward of us," added Christy. "That is about where the entrance to St. Andrew's Bay ought to be, if my calculations were correct. We have been running to the eastward since we left the blockaders' station off Pensacola Bay. My ruler on the chart gave me that course, and Mr. Galvinne followed it while he was in charge. We could not have got more than half a mile off the course in coming about twice. The shoaling of the water also indicates that we are all right."
 
204 The body of the fog evidently lay near the water, and the lookout had probably seen the light over the top of the bank, as it could not be made out on the bridge. Christy expressed his belief that the sun would burn the fog off soon after it rose. No variation of the drift lead had been reported, and the Bronx was not even swinging at her anchor. For an hour longer entire silence was preserved on the deck, and the lookout made no further report.
 
"There is some sort of commotion among the men on the top-gallant forecastle," said Mr. Pennant, while Christy was still studying the situation, and one of the men was seen in the act of hurrying aft.
 
"I heard men's voices off to the eastward," said this man, when he had mounted the bridge, and touched his hat to the officers there; and he spoke in a whisper, in conformity with the orders given.
 
"Could you hear any slapping of a paddle wheel, or other noises that sound like a steamer?" asked Christy in the same low tone.
 
"No, sir; nothing but the voices; but I think the speakers must be in a vessel of some sort, for 205 the sound since I first heard it, and could hardly make it out, comes from farther south," replied the man.
 
"Take a force of twelve men, with pistols and cutlasses, Mr. Pennant, in the first cutter, and pull down to the south-east. Whatever you find in the shape of a vessel or a boat, capture it, and return to the Bronx. Get off with as little noise as possible, and muffle your oars."
 
Silently Mr. Pennant selected his crew for the boat, saw them armed, and had the cutter lowered into the water. In a very short space of time the boat was off. The commander did not believe that anything very serious would result from this boat expedition, for he was confident there was no vessel of any size near the Bronx. The men in the cutter pulled very quietly, and hardly splashed the water with their oars, for they had all been trained by Christy himself to pull without noise when he was executive officer.
 
This was the first responsible position Mr. Pennant had been called upon to fill, and he knew that his future depended in a large measure upon the skill and fidelity with which he obeyed his orders. His crew believed in him, and they were 206 very painstaking in their efforts to work in silence. He had stationed quartermaster Vincent in the bow of the boat as the lookout, and he was industriously peering out into the gloom of the fog and darkness to discover a vessel or a boat. He had heard the sounds himself, and he knew there was something there. When the boat had pulled about fifteen minutes, Vincent raised his hand up into the air; this was a signal which the third lieutenant understood, for he had arranged several of them with the quartermaster.
 
"Stand by to lay on your oars," said Mr. Pennant in the lowest tones that could be heard by the crew. "Oars!"
 
At the last order the men levelled their oars, feathering the blades, and remained like eight statues in their seats. Vincent listened with all his ears in the dead silence which prevailed.
 
"I hear the voices again," he reported to the lieutenant in the stern sheets, in a voice just loud enough to reach him; "they are more to the southward."
 
"Stand by!" added Mr. Pennant, who had been duly trained in boat service at an oar. "Give way together! No noise!"
 
207 The boat went ahead again, though only at a moderate speed consistent with the least possible noise. The quartermaster in the bow continued to gaze into the fog bank, though by this time there was a little lighting up in the east, indicating that the day was breaking. For half an hour longer the cutter continued on its course. Occasionally Vincent had raised his hand over his head, and then dropped it to his left, indicating to the officer in command that the sounds came from farther to the southward, and the cockswain was directed to change the course.
 
In another half hour the noises could be distinctly heard by the third lieutenant, and he directed the co............