Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/103

Rh all his eyes lest he should miss something, there was a separate passage of the adventure that  was all his own. For as the ship’s searchlights slanted down upon them a moment too late,  cutting a wide, white circle upon the water,  they showed him a most unexpected sight. There, bobbing serenely on the waves, her sails drooping and a little bedraggled as though she  were very tired, but her gay red pennant fluttering bravely still, rode the little craft that  had been the cause of all his adventures. There could surely be no doubt that it was the Josephine. A moment she sailed serenely alongside, then the roar of foaming water from  under the destroyer’s bow reached out and  caught her. She staggered, careened, rose boldly on the summit of a wave, then sank. She had sailed far and carried calamity in her wake, but she made a brave end and went  down with colours flying.

His excitement in watching the Josephine was most rudely interrupted by the discovery  by the young officer that there was some one on  the bridge who had no business to be there. Just what was said to him, Billy preferred afterwards not to remember. He was bundled down the steps with far more haste than cere-