Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/106

88 was quite lost on Billy, for he was deep  in slumber almost before he could clamber in. He was nevertheless uneasily conscious, even through the heaviest of his repose, of the  swinging and bumping that attended his slumbers. He thought he must be still dreaming when some one shook him by the arm.

“It’s a shame to waken such a sleepy boy,” said his friend, the blue-jacket, “but there’s  something here you don’t want to miss seeing.”

Billy would have been willing to miss anything, he thought, until he had stumbled out of his hammock, rubbed the sleep from his  eyes and looked where his companion pointed.

It was morning, cold, cloudy, windless morning, but still with light enough to see. One by one the ships were leaving their anchorage and moving away in long procession, huge dreadnaughts, swift cruisers, torpedo boats and submarines. In endless line they seemed to pass, stately and grey and silent  in the dawn. Billy, his teeth chattering with chill and excitement, his bones still aching from the misadventures of the past hours,  clung to his friend’s arm and looked and  looked as though he could not see enough.

Never before had he had an idea of what