"How beautiful!" cried Sabina, whose young man stood beside her. "It
is as if a gigantic racket, all of one color, had burst, and hung
suspended there like the planets of heaven."
"It reminds me," whispered Katherine to Dorothy, "of an overgrown
pop-corn ball," at which remark the two girls were frivolous enough to
laugh.
"Crash!" sounded a cannon from an American ship, and then the white
squadron became visible in a blaze of lightning. And now all the
yachts and other craft on the waters flaunted their lines of fire, and
the whole Bay was illuminated like a lake in Fairyland.
"Now," said Captain Kempt with a chuckle, "watch the Britisher. I
think she's going to show us some color," and as he spoke there
appeared, spreading from nest to mast, a huge sheet of blue, with four
great stars which pointed the corners of a parallelogram, and between
the stars shone a huge white anchor. Cheers rang out from the crew of
the "Consternation," and the band on board played "The Star-Spangled
Banner."
"That," said Captain Kempt in explanation, "is the flag of the United
States Secretary of the Navy, who will be with us to-night. The
visitors have kept very quiet about this bit of illumination, but our
lads got on to the secret about a week ago, and I'll be very much
disappointed if they don't give 'em tit for tat."
When the band on the "Consternation" ceased playing, all lights went
out on the American squadron, and then on the flagship appeared from
mast to mast a device with the Union Jack in the corner, a great red
cross dividing the flag into three white squares.
Pages:
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50