hell!"

"Good for you, Gerry," a strong, fresh voice behind them declared.
"That's my job now. Didn't you hear us shouting after you, Olive and
I? Look!"

Her brother waved a telegram.

"You've got your ship?" Thomson inquired.

"I've got what I wanted," the young man answered enthusiastically.
"I've got a destroyer, one of the new type--forty knots an hour, a
dear little row of four-inch guns, and, my God! something else, I
hope, that'll teach those murderers a lesson," he added, shaking his
fist towards the placard.

Geraldine laid her hand upon her brother's arm.

"When do you join, Ralph?"

"To-morrow night at Portsmouth," he replied. "I'm afraid we shall be
several days before we are at work. It's the _Scorpion_ they're
giving me, Gerald--or the mystery ship, as they call it in the navy."

"Why?" she asked.

His rather boyish face, curiously like his sister's, was suddenly
transformed.

"Because we've got a rod in pickle for those cursed pirates--"