"It's lucky for him," he added, lowering the glasses, "that
there'll be no fight to-day."
Channing gave a gasp of disappointment. "What do you mean?" he
protested.
"You can look for yourself," said the captain, handing him the
glasses. "They're at their same old stations. There'll be no
bombardment to-day. That's the Iowa, nearest us, the Oregon's to
starboard of her, and the next is the Indiana. That little fellow
close under the land is the Gloucester."
He glanced up at the mast to see that the press-boat's signal was
conspicuous, they were drawing within range.
With the naked eye, Channing could see the monster, mouse-colored
war-ships, basking in the sun, solemn and motionless in a great
crescent, with its one horn resting off the harbor-mouth. They made
great blots on the sparkling, glancing surface of the water. Above
each superstructure, their fighting-tops, giant davits, funnels, and
gibbet-like yards twisted into the air, fantastic and
incomprehensible, but the bulk below seemed to rest solidly on the
bottom of the ocean, like an island of lead. The muzzles of their
guns peered from the turrets as from ramparts of rock.
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