Ensign Merrill — page 57: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

_» . ’ 7 - A - .\ l, m ‘ 7 : . +’ ® 7 * ¥ ° 7 7 ‘ ° : f-4 © = . 4 A Pd 4 a e ee ~. ae oy : é ‘ .. ’ \ * - ‘ - + ‘* : F ; = vuM ed Car THE MYSTERIO us: SIONAL. and, as Mark paced up and down the quarter-deck HN mo Ned, shortly after nightfall, he felt less harassed by the - eares of responsibility than at any time since ae the Trenton. The two young officers walked nik and forth, talk- ing quietly over the one absorbing topic of conversation —the expedition—for an hour, and ever and anon as they neared the after rail, they would pause and glance toward the far-away shore, now only marked by a faint twinkling light, or a blacker smudge against the som- ber background of the horizon. © - The evening was calm, there being hardly enough breeze to temper the summer heat remaining from a tropical day, but there was a ‘‘touch’’ to it which gave promise of strength to come, and Mark, learned in the meaning of such things, looked more than once at that distant quarter from whence it came. It was pleasant to stand away aft over the counter with back to ship and the sea. so close at hand; to feel the quiver of the vessel, the soft, tremulous throb of the engines, and that easy rise and fall of the deck, likea cradle rocked by motherly hands. It was exhilarating to note the onward=impulse of the iron fabric, and the slant of the hull as an occasional wave would roll silently under the streaks. To watch the sparkling play of the waters broadening out astern, and the phos- phorescent streaks of light darting here and there as some denizen of the deep would fiy affrighted from that monstrous shape they could not understand. To Mark and Ned this was an old story, but one of which they - never tired, and when at last the mellow tones of the © ship’s bell came to- their ears, striking the hour of eight, followed by a hoarse, long-drawn outcry of — ‘“All’s wel-l-l,”’ from the lookouts, they turned palte. 4 SHY and proceeded toward the eg | | | “comic books ts mi