And so we kept on. Don't you know, how in the stories it is always in a
terrific gale that the caged lion or gorilla or python breaks loose and
terrorizes the ship? We don't sport a menagerie on the ----, but I did
pick up the contents of the dry gun-cotton case, which had broken and
spilt the torpedo detonators around on deck contiguous to the hot
radiator! And, of course, the decks below were knee-deep in books,
clothes, dishes, etc., complicated in some compartments by a foot or two
of oil and water.

[Sidenote: Soundings and landmarks.]

Well, the next day we made a little more, and the seas were only
gigantic, not titanic. The oil was holding out better, too, as we struck
a better grade in some of our tanks, and I saw that we had a fighting
chance of making it. By night I felt almost confident we could, and I
really slept some. Next day I expected to make land, but, of course, had
little idea how far I might really be from my reckoning. Nevertheless,
we sighted ---- Light about where I expected to, and laid a course from
there into the harbor. It was a rather thick, foggy day, and pretty soon
I noted a cunning little rock or two, dead ahead, where they didn't by
any means belong. So I rather hurriedly arrested further progress, took
soundings, and bearings of different landmarks, and found that we were
some twenty-five miles from our reckoning--so far, in fact, as to have
picked up the next light-house instead of the one we thought.

After this 'twas plain sailing, though I had never been into that port
before. Made it about noon, took possession of a convenient mooring-buoy
inside the breakwater--which buoy I found out later was sacred to the
French flag-ship or somebody like that--called on our Admiral there, and
was among friends. Yes, by heck, I let 'em buy me a drink at the club--I