Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/110

 British gunboat just before evening and exchanged signals, with the result that the Gyandotte turned groaningly back and steamed northward again. Several times smoke was sighted, but each chase only raised a friendly ship. The next morning the Gyandotte was out of sight of anything that even suggested land and doing her best clip, which proved to be nineteen and a half knots. At noon that day the radio man picked up cheering news which was posted on the bulletin:

"United States torpedo boat Benton sighted a ship believed to be an enemy raider at five-thirty o'clock yesterday evening and fired eight shots but was unable to hit owing to extreme range. The enemy refused battle and made her escape at about eighteen knots."

"They might tell us where," grumbled a young gunner's mate of Nelson's watch. "For all that says it might have been up around Newfoundland!"

But there was a general feeling throughout the ship that the Benton's encounter with the raider had been rather nearer at hand than that and that somewhere this side of Bermuda, toward which the cruiser was scouting, there would be something doing. Foretop and maintop lookout kept a sharp watch that day, but night closed down over a 88