of being very far from home. He shivered slightly as though from the
cold, and stepping inside closed the window gently behind him.

Although Holcombe met Carroll several times during the following day,
the latter obviously avoided him, and it was not until late in the
afternoon that Holcombe was given a chance to speak to him again.
Carroll was coming down the only street on a run, jumping from one
rough stone to another, and with his face lighted up with excitement.
He hailed Holcombe from a distance with a wave of the hand. "There's
an American man-of-war in the bay," he cried; "one of the new ones. We
saw her flag from the hotel. Come on!" Holcombe followed as a matter
of course, as Carroll evidently expected that he would, and they
reached the end of the landing-pier together, just as the ship of war
ran up and broke the square red flag of Morocco from her main-mast and
fired her salute.

"They'll be sending a boat in by-and-by," said Carroll, "and we'll
have a talk with the men." His enthusiasm touched his companion also,
and the sight of the floating atom of the great country that was his
moved him strongly, as though it were a personal message from home. It
came to him like the familiar stamp, and a familiar handwriting on a
letter in a far-away land, and made him feel how dear his own country
was to him and how much he needed it. They were leaning side by side
upon the rail watching the ship's screws turning the blue waters
white, and the men running about the deck, and the blue-coated figures
on the bridge. Holcombe turned to point out the vessel's name to
Carroll, and found that his companion's eyes were half closed and
filled with tears.

Carroll laughed consciously and coughed. "We kept it up a bit too late