"'Ask of the winds, that far around!With fragments strewed the sea!'"
"'Ask of the winds, that far around!With fragments strewed the sea!'"
was Danny's comforting answer.
Dismal and Rattleton retreated a step or two, as did Elsie Bellwood. But Inza stood her ground as bravely as Merriwell himself.
Then, before more could be said, the big cannon boomed forth its volume of deafening sound, making the very walls shake. Danny tumbled backward, then picked himself up and felt over his person very carefully.
"Am I all here?" he anxiously queried.
All watched the direction in which the huge shot had been fired, but it fell miles away. Merriwell and a few others, provided with strong glasses, saw it drop into the sea. The captain was talking again.
"The instruments record an initial velocity of one thousand feet per second, with a pressure of twenty-four thousand pounds."
"I've been under greater pressure than that," Danny chirped.
"When you were shot?" Bink asked. "All guns, big and little, are under pressure when they are shot."
"I'll put your throat under pressure when we get away from here!" Bink threatened.
"This is a twelve-inch rifle, loaded with one hundred and thirty pounds of powder and a projectile of the same weight as the first."
The party had moved to a new point, and Captain Heath was again talking. Other guns were fired, after the discharge of this one; the last shot being sent from a twelve-inch rifle with a charge of four hundred and seventy-five pounds of Dupont brown prismatic powder and a projectile weighing one thousand pounds.
The roar, the jar, and the vibration were like that of a miniature earthquake. Captain Heath's calm voice was heard again, after a short silence.
"The velocity was two thousand and eighty-eight feet per second, and the pressure four thousand pounds. This pressure is ten thousand pounds too high. The powder is too quick, and will be condemned."
After this there was an examination of the guns and carriages, with a lecture by Lieutenant Bell; an examination of the gun-lift battery and the hydraulic lifts, and the wonderful Buffington-Crozier disappearing-carriages, and a look over the site of the new artillery post to be known as Fort Hancock. Then luncheon was served.
In spite of the many interesting things which he had seen and to which he had listened, Merriwell could not get his thoughts away from Barney Mulloy. He had already obtained consent for the party to be taken on the launch to Sea Cove and Glen Springs at once, after luncheon. Thinking of these things and with his head full of the plans for discovering the secret of the happenings at Glen Springs, he walked round the works again, viewing the emplacements and the big guns, but with his thoughts far enough away from the things on which his eyes rested.
Suddenly he was attracted by a cry. It seemed to come from the air, and it made him think of the apparition and the ghostly footsteps. But when he glanced up he saw Danny Griswold's head protruding from the muzzle of a large coast-defense cannon. Merriwell was astonished, though such a piece of recklessness was just like Danny. It was not that Frank feared any peril to Danny from the gun, but the officers and gunners would be indignant, no doubt, if they caught the little joker playing hide-and-seek in that way with one of their pets.
"I'll give him a scare," he thought. "He is getting altogether too fresh."
"Danny Griswold, that gun is loaded, and they are going to fire it!" Merry cried, with well-simulated fear.
Danny's red head came farther out, like the head of a tortoise issuing from its shell.
"Then I suppose I shall be able to get out of here!" Danny chirped. "I can't do it, unless I am shot out. I slipped in here easy enough, but I've grown, I guess, for I can't slip back."
"How did you get in there, anyway?"
"Climbed in."
"I'm afraid you will have to climb out."
A gunner came hurrying upon the scene.
"Wh-what?" he sputtered.
"Our little friend is in need of assistance. If he gets out of there he will never play cannon-ball again."
"If you will just fire me!" Danny begged, not a bit abashed.
The gunner was not at all willing that Danny's plight should be discovered by an officer, so he quickly went to Danny's assistance, and "fired" him by bodily pulling him out of the cannon.
"Thanks!" chirped the little joker, as he dropped to the ground. "Bink says that I'm a small-caliber projectile, but I was quite big enough for that cannon. Say, do you fire men every day?"
The gunner could not suppress a grin.
"Men? Well, you're likely to get fired, young feller, if you monkey round these guns!" he declared.
What news was obtainable at Sea Cove about Barney Mulloy was important, though somewhat unsatisfactory. Barney had been attacked by tramps and badly hurt, but not killed, though at first the report of his death had gone out. One of the tramps had been nearly killed in the fight, and Mulloy had disappeared.
"What became of him? Where did he go?" were Merriwell's questions.
"We didn't pay much attention to it," was the answer given by Merriwell's Sea Cove informant. "Likely he walked off, or went away on the boat or train. Easy enough to get out of this place."
With this meager information, Frank and his friends hurried back on the launch to Glen Springs.
"He isn't dead!" was Merry's cheerful declaration. "That must have been Barney that Bart and I saw."
"But the walking?" Hodge dubiously questioned.
"And why should he be in hiding?" Diamond demanded.
"Some men love darkness, because their deeds are evil," Dismal droned.
"Well, you may be sure that Barney's deeds were not evil," said Frank, "Barney is straight, and true blue."
Night was at hand when the launch cast anchor in the shallow harbor in front of Glen Springs and sent a boat ashore with Merry and the friends he had chosen for the vigil of the coming hours of darkness. The landlord of the little hotel was not pleased that they had returned for the purpose of capturing the "ghost," though he was beginning, as he confessed, to feel "creepy" about it himself.
"I was intendin' to set up and watch for it, if you hadn't come," he finally admitted.
No one answering to Barney's description had been seen in Glen Springs through the day. In fact, no stranger whatever had been seen in the place from the time the launch went away until it returned.
"It's mighty curious," Bart grimly observed.
"I have a feeling that we will learn to-night just what it is," said Merriwell.
Frank occupied his old room, and sat at the window with Hodge, while Diamond, Rattleton, and Bruce remained in the office. The doors leading to the corridor were at first closed. Merry looked at his watch after the lights were put out in the part of the building occupied by the landlord and his family.
"It ought to be coming around again pretty soon," Bart remarked, finding it impossible to escape a queer, uneasy feeling, anxious as he was to see the specter, and determined as he was to effect its capture if it again appeared.
As he said it, the sounds of those mysterious steps were again heard in the corridor, and they heard the occupants of the office fling open the door.
"You weren't walking in here?" Diamond demanded.
"Not on your life!" Bart answered.
"But we heard some one!"
"Of course you did, and so did we. And we heard it last night!"
Rattleton and Bruce came on through into Merriwell's room.
"Scrate Gott, this is enough to turn a man's hair white!" Rattleton sputtered.
"Did you think we were just jollying you about this?" Bart sharply asked.
"No, but——"
"You're likely to see the thing, as well as hear it," Hodge asserted.
The landlord, who had not retired, though making a pretense of so doing, tumbled down in much excitement, in response to Rattleton's summons.
"Did you see it, boys?" he gasped.
His face was white, and he was trembling. All the assumed bravery had gone out of him.
"Only heard it walking there in the hall," Frank answered.
The landlord gave a jump. He had forgotten that he was standing by the corridor door.
"Oh, you can't see anything!" Frank reminded. "That's the trouble. We can hear the thing walking, but we can't see anything. Close the door, and we may be able to hear it again."
"Don't! don't!" the landlord pleaded.
"But I want you to hear it. Perhaps you can tell us what it is."
"There is never anything in the corridor," the landlord declared. "I can't set here if you shut that door."
"There he is again!" said Hodge, in the voice of one who expects to behold the supernatural and inexplicable and has steeled himself against unpleasant sensations. "There he comes! Barney, as sure as guns!"
The landlord dropped limply into a chair, and stared out through the open window in the direction indicated by Hodge's pointing finger. The others grouped round Merriwell and Bart.
"You see it?" Frank whispered.
"Let me out of this!" the landlord gurgled, though no hand was restraining him. "Booh-h-h! Let me out of this. Ah-h-h-h-h! It's a ghost, sure enough! Don't you see that white cloth on its head—a bloody white cloth?"
He seemed about to tumble over in a fit.
"He's coming this way!" Merry whispered. "Just keep still now, all of you!"
Rattleton seemed about to bolt from the place, though the others were bravely standing their ground.
"No ghost there!" said Browning. "That's a live man."
"It's Barney," Merry declared. "He is not dead. His head is tied up."
"But what makes the—him sneak along in that way?" Rattleton gasped. "Whee-giz, it makes my blood run cold! Ugh!"
"Just keep still, and we shall soon find out!" Frank sharply commanded, in a whisper.
The ghostly figure came slowly up the walk. Nearer and nearer it drew, walking as if it did not fear discovery at that late hour.
"There is another!" Rattleton whispered.
The figure of a woman came into view, hurrying rapidly along the path after Mulloy, and seeming to be in pursuit of him, though he appeared not to know it.
"Now!" Merry whispered. "Ready, Hodge—now!"
He leaped through the window, with Bart at his side. The ghostly figure was but a few yards away. Before it could turn in the direction of the sound they were half-way across the intervening space.
"Barney! Mulloy!" Frank called.
The figure uttered a cry, and started to run. But Frank's pace was too swift. Almost in the next instant his hand fell on the shoulder of the specter.
"Don't you know me, Barney? I'm Merriwell!"
The figure ceased its struggles.
"Hurroo! Is it yez for thrue, Merriwell? I t'ought it wor an officer thryin' to arrist me."
"Break loose and run, ye fool!" was squealed in a high, feminine voice. "Run, Barney, dear—run!"
"Niver!" Barney declared. "Niver will I run from a fri'nd loike Merriwell!"
"But you'll be put in jail! You'll be hung!" the woman shrieked, in a vain effort to stampede the Irish lad. "Them fellers is officers."
Bart had pushed up, so that Mulloy could recognize him.
"Save me frum her, Frankie!" Barney pleaded. "Woo-oo! Begorra! She's crazier than wildcats!"
Then he whispered:
"The ould sinner wants to marry me. Think av thot! She's been hoidin' me frum the officers fer matrimoonial poorpuses. Take me away from her, Frankie, darlint! Oi've kilt a thramp, and I'm in peril av bein' hoong for it; but I'd rather be hoong than to marry such a cat as thot! Bad cess to her!"
"Gentlemen, the poor fellow is out of his head!" the woman purred, modulating that shrieking voice. "His head has been hurt, and he don't know nothin' that he's talkin' 'bout."
Barney clung to Merriwell and Hodge as if he feared the woman would drag him bodily away from these friends.
"Oi suppose thot she may be able to foorce me into marryin' her," he moaned. "Oi kilt a thramp, and Oi wor hidin' frum the officers—may the divil floy away wid thim—and Oi sneaked intil her house, d'ye moind, and hid me loike a fool under her bed. The crayther had been lookin' under thot bed for forty years to foind a man! And whin she let her ould oyes loight on me, she pulled me out av there; an' she's been kapin' me and scarin' me intil fits and hoidin' me from the officers iver since—and, bad cess to her, nixt wake she wor goin' to marry me."
"Why did you sneak round the hotel and along the paths in that queer way?" Frank asked, after the vinegary-visaged and matrimonially inclined female had departed in despair and disgust, and he had Barney alone. "That still puzzles me. We heard that you had been killed by those tramps, and you looked and acted enough like a ghost to be one!"
"A ghost, is it?" said Barney, glancing about as if he did not like even the thought. "Thot ould witch wor kapin' me hid away from the officers in thot wee bit av a house roight behind the three over there, and all the ixercoise Oi could git wor whin Oi could shlip out av noights and walk round and swally a brith av fresh air. Oi t'ought Oi had kilt the thramp and thot the officers wor watchin' for me! Thot ould divil hilped me to believe thot hersilf! So whin Oi heard yez call, av coorse Oi worn't goin' to sthop and be arristed. A ghost, is it? Oi'm thinkin' thot yez'd be crapin' round, too, if yez t'ought thot a rope wor riddy to toighten about the neck av yez!"
"Haw! haw! haw!"
The roars did not proceed from Joe Gamp, but from the landlord of the hotel. Now that Barney was found to be real flesh and blood, and not a spirit, the landlord had entered more heartily into the search for the mysterious source of the strange footsteps. He had been willing that the doors opening into the corridors should be closed—for only when the corridor was darkened could the ghostly sounds be heard.
As soon as the "footsteps" came again he threw open the door and chucklingly led the way out through a side room into a shedlike structure that came up against the corridor wall.
"There is your ha'nt!" he roared, pointing down into a pen in the shed. "There is your ha'nt! A gol-derned old sea-turtle! Haw! haw! haw! Ho! ho! ho! He! he! he!"
The turtle was a monster in size.
"But—I don't see!" said Merriwell. "This doesn't explain."
The landlord hopped into the pen and flipped the huge turtle over on its back against the wall. Thereupon it began to kick out with its great flippers, striking them against the corridor wall and making the sounds which had seemed to be footsteps. Merriwell looked round.
"I see!" he admitted. "The light from the lighted corridor came through that transom."
"Jest so!" said the landlord. "Whenever your light shined in here it scart the turtle, and it quit kickin'. It's always trying to climb out of the pen and falling over on its back; and when it tips over near the wall and strikes with them flippers, it makes that sound. If it ain't near the wall, of course it don't strike nothin' to make the sound. And, of course, soon's it can turn itself back—which it can't sometimes for hours—it quits kickin' out."
"And yez tuk me for thot thing and thot thing for me, and aitch av us knew nothing about it, and it wasn't ayther av us!" chuckled Barney.
"Just so!" said Merriwell. "And right glad I am to understand it, and to know that you are living!"
"And Oi niver wor gladder to see anybody in my loife! The soight av yez makes me well. And Bart, me jewel! Yez are as foine a laddie as iver lived! Give me the touch av yer hand ag'in!"
And so the mystery was solved, and Barney escaped, be it said, heartwhole and body free—while Frank and his friends returned to the city.
No modern series of tales for boys and youths has met with anything like the cordial reception and popularity accorded to the Frank Merriwell Stories.
There must be a reason for this and there is. Frank Merriwell, as portrayed by the author, is a jolly, whole-souled, honest, courageous American lad, who appeals to the hearts of the boys. He has no bad habits, and his manliness inculcates the idea that it is not necessary for a boy to indulge in petty vices to be a hero. Frank Merriwell's example is a shining light for every ambitious lad to follow.
Frank Merriwell's School DaysFrank Merriwell's ChumsFrank Merriwell's FoesFrank Merriwell's Trip WestFrank Merriwell Down SouthFrank Merriwell's BraveryFrank Merriwell's RacesFrank Merriwell's Hunting TourFrank Merriwell's Sports AfieldFrank Merriwell at YaleFrank Merriwell's CourageFrank Merriwell's DaringFrank Merriwell's SkillFrank Merriwell's ChampionsFrank Merriwell's Return to YaleFrank Merriwell's SecretFrank Merriwell's LoyaltyFrank Merriwell's RewardFrank Merriwell's FaithFrank Merriwell's VictoriesFrank Merriwell's PowerFrank Merriwell's Set-BackFrank Merriwell's False FriendFrank Merriwell's Brother
For sale by all booksellers, or sent, postpaid, on receipt of price by the publisher.
DAVID McKAY, Philadelphia