THE TRAIL.
Herc decided to begin his investigation into Ned's mysterious disappearance by making a canvass of the hotels on Civic Island. There were not so very many of them, and by chance the third or fourth that he struck was the one in which Ned had put up.
But he could not glean much information there. They informed him of the hour that Ned had left the place, and further questioning elicited the fact that, as we know, Ned had engaged a hack to convey him part way to his destination.
Armed with this information, Herc, feeling not at all eased in his mind, started out to find the hackman. He had a long search for the man, but at last he discovered him in the person of a bulbous-nosed, bibulous-looking old specimen of the genus hack-driver.
Yes, the man recollected Ned. Knew the very place he had dropped him. Would he drive Herc out there? Certainly. Ned jumped into the rickety old conveyance owned by the bulbous-nosed man, who rejoiced in the name of Chuck Chiggins.
Chuck's bony old nag, in due time, landed the cab at the place where Ned had left it. Herc could see the Neck stretching out tenuously across the shining water. Telling Chuck to wait, he walked about for an hour or more trying rather vaguely to locate at least some clew to Ned's whereabouts. Needless almost is it to say, that he did not succeed in his purpose. In fact it was more for the sake of doing something to work off his anxiety that Herc made the idle search at all.
"The Neck appears ter be gittin' a pop'lar place lately," volunteered Chuck, when Herc returned.
"How's that?" asked Herc disinterestedly, ashe resumed his place and told Chuck to drive back to the island.
"Why, it's jes' this way. Right arter your friend drove down this way, I meets a Jap pluggin' along the road. He asks me to drive him to some point near to the Neck."
"What's that?" Herc had suddenly galvanized into interest. A Jap! And in the vicinity of the place where Ned was carrying on his confidential observations! There was food for thought here.
The old cabby, with a look of astonishment at Herc's sudden and vehement interest, repeated his story.
"He were a mighty onery looking Jap, too," he volunteered; "but, Lord bless yer, if I was ter inquire into the character of everyone that rode in this here cab, it's not much business that I'd be doin'."
As they jogged along over the sandy road, Herc had plenty of material for reflection. Of course, it might be only a far-fetched conclusion,but it appeared reasonable to suppose that the Jap whom Chuck had driven was none other than Saki.
If this was the case, Herc was almost certain that the Oriental and Kenworth had an appointment on the Neck. It was not likely, either, that they were there for any legitimate purpose, inasmuch as one had deserted from his ship and the other had overstayed his leave for the purpose.
"I'm certain that their presence there meant harm to good old Ned," muttered Herc gloomily. "My! what a tangle this thing is getting into."
The old hack jolted over the bridge and began traversing the streets of Civic Island. Ordinarily Herc would have found much to look at. The Island is one of the most remarkable places in the vicinity of New York. In summer the inlet between the island and the main land is crowded with houseboats and pleasure craft of all kinds.
Its one main street, bordered by gimcrackrestaurants and rickety boarding-houses, interspersed with a few stores, is thronged with white-garbed yachtsmen and girls in brightly colored blazers and duck skirts. There is music everywhere, from wheezy orchestrions to wandering string orchestras. It is a veritable summer city by the sea. With the first blast of cold weather the pageant vanishes, and Civic Island is deserted of its butterfly population almost overnight.
But there is another aspect to life on this remarkable island. On the side opposite to that devoted to catering to the summer guests, is a strange colony of beach-combers, fishermen and more or less languishing boat-works. In this part of the island, too, are laid up the gaunt skeletons of various yachts which have competed for the America Cup.
Useless for any purpose but that for which they were built, racing machines pure and simple, the hulls of the once splendid sailing cracks liemoldering on ancient ways, dreaming of the days when they skimmed the seas with pyramids of snowy canvas rising above their deep-keeled bodies. In this part of the island can be found gaunt, rat-haunted factory buildings once devoted to sail-lofts and rope-walks. But with the passing of this branch of maritime trade from Civic Island the rickety structures with gaping windows and cracking boards stand tenantless and moss-grown like so many stranded hulks, the tide washing at the piles on which some of them extend out over the water.
They were passing along the lower end of the "summer resort" street of the island when Herc gave a sudden exclamation. Before Chuck could utter a word, Herc was out of the rig and bounding off down the thoroughfare.
The old cabby had not even time to shout out indignantly that Herc had forgotten the formality of paying his fare, before the tall, red-headedyouth had vanished round a corner, his long legs going like piston rods.
The cause of Herc's sudden change from the cab to the street was this:
Rounding the corner, past which he himself dashed a moment later, he had caught a glimpse of two backs that appeared strikingly familiar to him.
Like a flash, the reason for this familiar appearance had come over him.
The two pedestrians who excited his attention were Kenworth, the renegade midshipman, and Saki, the mysterious Jap.
THE JAPANESE STORE.
When Herc hit the sidewalk he utterly forgot all else in his anxiety to follow and trace out the destination of the two he had so providentially, he felt, sighted from the cab.
He had a feeling that if he could run them down without their observing him, he would be able to discover the whereabouts of Ned, for the more he pondered it, the more the Dreadnought Boy felt certain that the two worthies he was trailing knew what had become of his chum.
He was perfectly correct in his prompt recognition of the two men. A second glance as he cautiously negotiated the corner showed him that.
The pair, who no doubt felt perfectly secure,were walking along at a moderate gait. From time to time they cast sharp glances at some shabby-looking little shops as if in search of something.
It will, of course, be recalled that the last time we saw Saki and his accomplice they were on the point of being precipitated into the stormy sea, following the death-blow the schooner had dealt the frail motor boat.
How they escaped a grave in the tumbling water rows we shall also learn before long. But just now let us follow Herc as, slipping in and out of doorways and taking advantage of every bit of cover, like a trained detective, he follows them.
As they did not look back, Herc's task was rendered considerably more easy of accomplishment than would otherwise have been the case. He kept, however, some yards to the rear in order to guard against the danger of being recognized.
The fact that he was in "mufti" or citizen'sclothes was in his favor. Young Taylor, in his not very stylish gray suit, was an inconspicuous person compared with the somewhat swaggering air he bore when he was in Uncle Sam's uniform.
They were leaving behind them the street that was crowded with summer-garbed promenaders. The stores were small and of no attraction. Dingy, uncleaned windows and slatternly-looking merchants began to make their appearance.
At the foot of the down-at-heel side street, Herc could catch a glimpse of water and could sight the barn-like outlines of some of the deserted factories already referred to.
"Where in the world can they be bound?" he found himself wondering.
Could he have known the events of the last twelve hours, he would also have wondered at their being there at all. It is not given to everyone to come as close to the grim scythe of death and to escape scot-free as Saki and Kenworth had done.
As it happened, Herc was not destined to have to wait long before his curiosity was, at least in part, gratified. The two men came to an abrupt halt in front of a store that was even more dingy in appearance than its neighbors. Grass was sprouting through the cracks in the rickety wooden sidewalk in front of it, and, so far as Herc could see, from the distance he was obliged to keep, the establishment bore no outward and visible sign of the goods for sale within. Yet its big, dirty window showed that it was a store of some sort.
Herc dodged into a doorway as the two men came to a standstill in front of this place. By peeping cautiously out he was able to ascertain that they had apparently reached their destination. At any rate, he saw Saki step up to the door and open it.
Then the portal swallowed them both, and Herc was left alone on the solitary by-street.
"Umph, what's the next move?" he mutteredto himself. "Looks like it's up to me to do something, but I'll be keel-hauled if I can think right now just what that 'something' is."
He paused irresolute. Then suddenly he came to action. He had decided to cross the street and reconnoiter from there, where he could obtain a view of the place the two men he was tracking had entered.
The maneuver did not take long, and was accomplished so far as the lad could see, without his being detected, or indeed the slightest notice being taken of him. So far, so good. Herc gazed across the street at the forlorn-looking place the two men had entered.
It was painted a dirty red, the pigment blistered and peeling off in big patches as if the structure was suffering from some sort of unclean leprosy. A jagged crack ran across the show window, which was too thickly grimed with dirt to permit the goods offered within to be displayed to passers-by, if, indeed, any stock in trade wason view. Above the lower floor, the second story was equally inscrutable. The windows were veiled like closed eyes, with dark green shades of a faded hue. Above, came the roof, a steep-pitched, shingled affair, which surmounted the house like a battered hat on a shabby man.
"Now what," mused Herc, "now what business can take a midshipman of Uncle Sam's navy into such a place in company with a yellow-skinned deserter of a wardroom steward?"
Although it had not at first attracted his attention, he now became aware that there was a name over the door. It was in letters that had once been gilt but were now almost as black and faded as the board that bore them.
"H. Nagasaki. Dealer in Cigars and Tobacco, Candy and Notions," was what Herc read.
"Sounds innocent enough," he said. "I know that fellow Kenworth is an inveterate cigarette smoker,—which accounts for his narrow chestand pasty face,—and maybe they went in there to get some."
For an instant or two Herc stood at pause, undetermined what course to pursue, but eying the doorway through which the two men had passed. While he stood thus, hesitant, the figure of another customer appeared in front of the Japanese store and passed within.
This gave Herc, situated as he was, a chance to observe the interior of the place. He saw that within was a counter and at the further end of the store a flight of stairs.
Up this flight of stairs, Herc glimpsed in the brief time the door was open the figures of Kenworth and Saki. They were in the act of ascending the stairway.
"Now what——?" mused Herc, and then he stopped short.
A bold thought had sprung unbidden into his mind. That the tumble-down, blighted store on the opposite side of the street held the secret ofNed's whereabouts, Herc felt suddenly convinced.
Acting almost without conscious volition, he crossed the street, and the next instant boldly flung open the door of "H. Nagasaki's" place and passed within.
A BOX OF MATCHES.
The change from the bright sunlight without to the dim and dusty interior of the store was, at first, almost blinding to Herc. Before entering he had taken the precaution to pull the front of his soft hat down over his eyes, for, as will be recalled, he was wearing civilian clothing. This did not help to make things clearer to his vision in the gloom.
His first impression was of a large apartment, bare of floor and wall, with a set of dusty show cases placed at one side behind a rickety counter. It did not look like a store where much business of the kind it ostensibly catered to was transacted.
All this confirmed Herc's growing suspicions that the place was conducted as a blind. Thatit was nothing more than a haunt for Japanese spies and those allied with them in their schemes against Uncle Sam.
A soft voice, a voice with a purring inflection as silky as that of a cream-fed cat, broke on his ears.
"What will the gentleman please to 'ave?"
Herc saw that a small, spectacled Japanese had glided rather than stepped in behind the counter, and now stood regarding the new customer with a face that might as well have been a mask for all the expression it conveyed.
It is a curious fact, but Herc, who up to that moment had acted the part of a bold investigator, suddenly found himself embarrassed. He struggled to find an answer to the simple question that had been put to him. This Jap behind the counter regarded him with growing suspicion.
"You come in for something—a cigar, maybe?" he purred.
"Yes—oh, yes,—give me—give me a box of matches," blurted out Herc desperately.
"A box of matches? Veree well."
The Jap turned deftly to the show cases behind him, and inserting a long fingered hand in a drawer, drew out the required article. Herc fumbled in his pocket for the change necessary, but in so doing he drew out a navy button, cut from his first uniform, with the small silver.
As he extended a nickel across the counter, with no very clear idea as to what he was to do next, he had the misfortune, for so he presently perceived it to be, to drop this pocket piece.
It fell with a jingling sound and before he could pick it up, the Jap was out from behind the counter and had grasped and was extending it to him.
"A navee button," said he suavely. "The honorable gentleman is in the service of the so estimable Uncle Sam?"
There was one thing that Herc could not do,at no matter what cost, and that was to lie. Yet he had important reasons for not wishing his service to become known to the Jap. So he compromised.
"Yes, it's a navy button," he said pocketing it.
"Ah; it is a fine service," said the Jap, with a swift appraising look at Herc, and at the red hair that showed under his pulled-down hat. "I often deplore that I am Japanese and so cannot to enter it."
"Yet there are Japs in the navy," said Herc, and then with one of those incautious bursts which Ned so often deprecated, he rushed on, "one came in here just now,—Saki, do you know him?"
From behind the spectacles a swift look of comprehension flashed into the Jap's eyes, and then died out again like a suddenly extinguished fire.
"Saki? I no know heem," he said.
"Humph, Iamon the right trail," exclaimedHerc to himself. "This fellow knows all about Ned. I'm afraid, also, that he is suspicious of me, but that can't be helped now."
"If you will wait one minute, I will bring you change," came the silky voice of the Jap. "Matches are one penny, you give me one nickel."
"All right, get the change. I'll wait for you," said Herc, trying to mask his anxiety to penetrate the secrets of this place under an appearance of indifference.
The Jap, with one swift backward glance at Herc, glided off and up the same stairway that Herc had seen Saki and Kenworth ascend. So he was going to join them and doubtless tell them of his suspicions. Herc was in a quandary.
If he left the place to give the alarm to the authorities, by the time he came back the birds might have flown and with them all clew to Ned. On the other hand, he could not, single-handed, face the whole nest of them.
But the next instant came another thought. After all, the place was not on the outposts ofcivilization. It was policed just as any other well-ordered district. Not a block away were gay summer cafés and promenaders. What harm could come to him here?
It was while his mind was busied with these reflections that Herc's eye fell on the door at the end of the store, already mentioned.
Where did it lead to? Perhaps to Ned's prison place. Herc glanced about him. The store was empty. Outside someone passed along whistling gaily. After all, he had nothing to fear and all to gain, if he could ascertain something concerning Ned's fate.
With half a dozen swift strides, Herc was across the store and at the rear door.
He fumbled with the latch an instant and then the portal swung open. Beyond was a dark passage. This rather surprised Herc, who had surmised that the door gave on to a back yard or another street, and who had thought that in case of emergency it might be utilized as a means of escape.
It was at this moment that a murmur of voices reached his ears. Several persons were seemingly descending the stairway up which the spectacled Jap had passed to procure change.
Herc was about to dart for the front door when he heard a sudden sharp clicking sound.
As if by intuition he guessed what it meant. By some mechanical means a bolt had been shot and he was trapped. He sped back again to the rear door. Darting through it, he dashed into the dark passage beyond. Then he suddenly checked himself. Why not secure that rear door from the inside?
But a second's fumbling in the dark showed him that there was no means of doing this.
The voices grew louder. They swelled to an angry clamor. Herc hastily slammed the door and plunged forward into the blackness. As he ran, he heard the trample of feet behind him and knew that the hunt was up and that he was the quarry.
MYSTERIES.
All that day, against head winds and tides, Captain Briggs' schooner clawed her way around Staten Island. Nightfall found her making her way up the staked channel in Raritan Bay with a fair breeze, and the bibulous skipper was in good humor. He even condescended to joke and laugh with Ned, who stood glumly by the wheel, watching the clumsy handling of the broad-beamed old craft.
Ned had indulged in much speculation concerning Captain Briggs and his craft since he had become what he felt was virtually a prisoner on board her. He was puzzled to make out the vessel's mission. Captain Briggs waxed more and more mysterious as the contents of the bottle and the sun together grew lower. From timeto time he threw out hints, which only served the purpose of further mystification.
The Dreadnought Boy began to think that he was on board a smuggler. It was the only conclusion he could reach, although he was actually miles beside the mark in his guess.
As it grew dusk, the schooner was brought up opposite a sandy, desolate-looking stretch of ground on the Jersey shore. It was a brush-grown point with here and there steep, reddish-colored miniature cliffs, where landslides had occurred in the sandy earth.
On the summit of the point a tall, white semaphore, like some grotesque skeleton, spread its arms against the sky. A chill wind blew off shore. Ned felt that he had reached the last spot in civilization, even though off in the distance on the Staten Island shore the smoke from the factory chimneys of Tottenville could be seen like a dark and sooty pall.
Ned was wondering whether they were goingto anchor there, when his unspoken question was answered by the rattle of the schooner's hawser as the rusty mud-hook dropped into the yellow, turbid tide.
"Well, of all queer cruises, this is the queerest," mused Ned, as he leaned against the rail and watched Captain Briggs bringing his craft to an anchorage.
He could not forbear smiling at the captain's importance as he issued his orders. A rear admiral on his own quarter-deck could not have been a bit more pompous or consequential.
At last all was arranged to Captain Briggs' satisfaction, and the schooner, under bare poles, swung at anchor.
"What's coming now?" wondered Ned, as he saw the captain come sidling toward him like a red-nosed crab, if such a thing can be imagined.
He was not left long in doubt. The captain eyed him with an oddly embarrassed air for a few seconds and then he spoke.
"Seeing as how I'm looking to get a bit of money out of you, mate," he said at length, with a sidewise squint out of his red-rimmed eyes, "maybe what I'm agoin' to do ain't just right. But," and here the captain strengthened his resolution with a draft out of his bottle, "but," he resumed, wiping his lips with the back of his hand, "what's got to be has got to be, ain't it?"
"Certainly," said Ned, with a smile at the captain's rather obvious logic.
"And that bein' the case, it will be, I reckon?" pursued the captain with the air of one propounding a profound question.
Again Ned agreed. This time he signified his entire understanding of the captain's views by a nod of his head.
"Well," resumed the skipper, "it's got to be that you've got to go below, and——"
"Go below?" repeated Ned indignantly. "See here, Captain Briggs, don't you think you're carrying this thing a little far?"
"I dunno as I am, and if I am, why, then, I dunno as it's any of your clamjamfried business," retorted the captain. "You wasn't asked to come on board this here fine vessel, was yer?"
"Certainly not, and as you know I'm more grateful than I can say to you for saving my life. But when——"
The captain shut Ned off with a wave of his hand.
"Least said, soonest mended," he remarked. "You an' me 'ull have our talk 'bout that later on. Cap'n Briggs, he gets paid fer his salvage, be it human or 'totherwise. The p'int is this, you've got to go below."
"But what is your object in confining me in that stuffy cabin?" objected Ned. "Let me stay on deck and I'll pledge you my word that I wouldn't have a chance to escape from you,—that is, if you persist in your insane idea that I have wealthy relatives who will pay handsomely for my ransom."
"'Tain't ransom, it's a man's rights," objected Captain Briggs; "but as I said before, tain't no manner o' use wasting of words. Below I want yer to go, and below you will go."
"If I refuse?"
"Wa'al," insinuated Captain Briggs, with a glance at his crew, who, as if they had been warned in advance, stood watching the scene, "wa'al, I op-pine t'wouldn't be just healthy like fer you to refuse. There's a heap of persuasion in a handspike and plenty of good argument in a capstan bar."
"What, you would dare to use violence on me? Maybe two can play at that game."
Ned's eyes flashed; his fists clenched. Yet he knew that he must control his temper with this pig-headed old mariner.
"I'll use violence, or anything else I please, to hev my orders carried out," flared out Captain Briggs. "Now then, are you going below peaceable or do we hev ter make yer?"
"Why are you so anxious to have me out of the way?" asked Ned. "What sort of nefarious business are you in?"
"Ain't in no 'farious business," bellowed the captain. "I'm an honest man, I am. But I'm on secret business,—business of the navy, ef you must know. Business fer the Blue fleet, as they calls it, ef you must know. Now will you go below?"
"Very well, if I must, I must," muttered Ned, with feigned reluctance, for at that instant he would not have left Captain Briggs' shabby little schooner for a king's ransom.
"Business for the Blue fleet." Could it be that Fate, by ways devious for even that uncertain goddess, had led his feet into the arcanum of the Blue fleet's secrets?
As Ned descended the cabin stairs into the malodorous little cabin, he determined to find out before he was many hours older the exact meaning of Captain Briggs' remark.
THROUGH THE CRACK IN THE WALL.
As Ned's feet sounded on the boards of the stuffy little cuddy, he heard a sharp "bang" above him and then the grating of a rusty iron bolt, as it was shot to, making him a prisoner.
The sound of the grating bolt and the sense that he was a captive, even though in a sense a voluntary one, made Ned see "red" for an instant.
"So they couldn't even trust to my word!" he muttered angrily to himself; and then, "All this precaution shows that there is something very out of the ordinary going forward. Something, too, that unless I miss my guess is in the line of my commission to find out. Gee whiz, I'd give a lot to know right now what is at the bottom of all this how-d'ye-do!"
Ned cast himself down on a transom. For a time silence reigned on deck. Then he became aware of a trampling of feet above him and the sound of hoarse voices hailing.
"Somebody coming alongside," surmised Ned, with ready apprehension of what was going forward. "It must be dark by this time. Clearly whatever their business is, it is such that does not bear the light of day for its transaction."
The noise on deck continued. Ned scrutinized his place of captivity for some means of seeing without its confines. But except for the scuttle which had been secured, the cabin was without openings. No port-holes or air vents were visible.
"If only I could see out," he muttered, "that would help some."
Then came more voices outside. Above them sounded sharp, authoritative tones.
"By the great bow gun, whoever is giving orders out there is a man-o'-war's-man!" exclaimedthe Dreadnought Boy. "Somethingisin the wind in connection with the Blue fleet beyond a doubt. By hookey, I may be on the verge of making some discovery which will be invaluable to our side."
He listened greedily now. His trained ears had not deceived him. It was a man-o'-war "steamer" that had glided up to Captain Briggs' down-at-heel craft. She now lay alongside, while her crew of Jackies hustled up upon the schooner's dirty decks and their leader, a petty officer, greeted Captain Briggs.
"We'll get to work just as soon as you're ready," grunted Captain Briggs to this individual, who had introduced himself as Gunner's Mate Steffens of the destroyerTruxton.
Presently, to Ned in the cabin below, came the sounds of hurrying action on deck. He heard the blows of hammers as the battens were ripped off hatchways and the cargo of theschooner, whatever it was, lay ready for the broachers.
There was a partition forward in the cabin, and Ned guessed that beyond it must lie the hold with its mysterious contents. He stationed himself against the bulkhead awaiting developments.
While he stood there listening to the creaking of blocks and tackles, as apparatus for transferring the cargo of the schooner to the "steamer" was in process of rigging, his eye was caught by a sudden gleam of light.
The cabin was dark, so he the more easily saw the long, thin slice of radiance that he was not long in finding out leaked through a longitudinal crack in the bulkhead, which was of the flimsiest construction.
Clearly enough, the hold was illuminated by the cargo broachers and this light filtered through from it. Ned lost no time in applying an eye to the crack thus luckily revealed.
He stood at gaze for a moment or two, his optic riveted to the crack. Then he started back with an exclamation.
"Great ginger! Talk about luck! Why, this is the very thing the commander was anxious to find out about. I heard him talking it over with some of the officers. He mentioned it, too, in my instructions."
Ned applied himself afresh to the crack. He might have been carved out of stone, so motionless did he stand there.
In the hold beyond, all was confusion, shouts, trampling feet and activity.
One after another big boxes and bales were hoisted out to be lowered into the waiting steamer. Through his crack Ned overheard enough to show him that the cargo was being transferred as fast as was possible under cover of the night.
As soon as she was filled to her capacity, the steamer scurried off and then returned again fora fresh cargo. From the brevity of these intervals of absence, Ned was able to argue that wherever the mysterious cargo was being taken, that place at least was not very far off.
More than likely it was some spot along the lonesome shore. In fact, Ned now recalled that below the skeleton-like semaphore he had noticed the decaying remnants of what had plainly enough once been a dock. If it was desired to land the schooner's cargo in secret, what more likely spot would offer for the disposal of it than this abandoned dock on a desolate shore?
Ned had seen enough of what was going forward in the hold and overheard enough, too, to convince him of the nature of the cargo that was being landed.
By a stroke of fortune that seemed almost miraculous, he had, or he was very much mistaken, stumbled upon the headquarters of the Aero division of the Blue fleet.
The cargo of the schooner consisted of suppliesbrought from the government station at Newport for the "Flying Squadron." There is hardly a boy in the land who does not know of the tremendous importance attached by modern governments to the aeroplane, or the hydro-aeroplane, as an adjunct to a battle fleet in time of war.
Readers of "The Dreadnought Boys on Aero Service" are aware that Ned was proficient enough in this branch of the service to realize at once the importance of the discovery he had made. He knew, too, that according to reports, the Blue fleet's main attack was to be made by war-aeroplanes. It was ignorance of the number and location of these flying harpies of the air that had caused the authorities of the Red fleet much anxiety. To be "technically dynamited" by a squadron of aeroplanes would result in almost certain defeat.
Small wonder was it then that Ned's heart leaped in elation as he realized that he had stumbledby sheer good luck upon the information wanted. But mingled with his delight came a sobering reflection.
He might have located the Blue's Aero fleet; but he was hardly in a position to put his knowledge to much practical use.
HERC'S SUBTERFUGE.
On down the dark passage dashed Herc. As he sped he extended both hands in front of him. For all he knew he might be dashing into an ambush. It was all too plain now that the place into which he had so cheerfully blundered was of a sinister character.
Suddenly his finger tips encountered something solid that the next instant gave way before them.
A door swung open. Herc found himself in a large room, cluttered with rusty tools, benches, and boxes. High on one wall was a window, through the unwashed panes of which a gray light sifted wanly into the vacant room beneath.
The room was plainly enough a cul-de-sac. There was no means of entering or leaving it,except by the door through which Herc had come,—that is, if the lofty window be excepted.
Pantingly the Dreadnought Boy looked about him. He must have a hiding place and that quickly. If he was to be of any use to Ned, it would be the worst thing that could happen if he, too, were to be made prisoner.
Poor Herc, if he had only known the true state of affairs! But with his customary impulsiveness the red-headed boy had followed his nose, and as not infrequently happened in Herc's affairs, it had led him into trouble.
"This place must be a perfect nest of Japanese spies," he mused to himself, as he gazed swiftly about. "Poor old Ned, they've trapped him and got him hidden away some place. But they won't get me so easily!"
He listened an instant. Footsteps were coming down the passage now.
"They've guessed I came this way. In fact,they couldn't very well help doing it," thought Herc.
He glanced up at the window above him. Would it be possible to escape that way?
With frenzied haste he began pulling a dusty bench from one corner and flinging upon it the old boxes with which the room was littered. But his time was all too short. Herc had to give over his labors half completed at the nearer approach of footsteps.
"I've got to hide some place, and that right quickly," he muttered, glancing about him in every direction.
Herc darted for the dimmest corner and crouched behind a large open box that stood there.
He had just time to squeeze himself back of it and draw it over him like the shell of a tortoise when the door was burst open.
Half a dozen men, headed by Kenworth, Sakiand the spectacled Jap, burst into the room. They gazed wildly about them.
"Why—why, he's not here!" gasped out Kenworth. "The red-headed fox has escaped!"
"Eem-poss-ible," the spectacled Jap informed him. "There is no way of getting out this room."
"Then he must be here," declared Saki sententiously; "we must find him. He is one of the most dangerous enemies we have got. He is even worse than that Ned Strong, whose body now lies at the bottom of the Sound, for the meddling fool that he was."
"Yes, he is drowned and out of the way," rejoined Kenworth, "and it was we, after all, that had the good fortune to be picked up by a fishing boat after drifting about in our life belts for hours, and to be brought ashore here. And now, confound it, just when everything looks like smooth sailing, Mister Red Head has to bob up and spoil it all."
"Never mind that now," said Saki briskly, "he cannot have gone far. We must find him."
"He must be in this room," declared the spectacled Jap; "he could not get out except——"
He stopped short, gazing at the pile of boxes on the rickety bench. They stood right under the high window.
Kenworth was the first to read his thoughts.
"Could he have escaped that way?" he asked.
"I will ask you another question, honorable Kenworth," was the reply. "Could he climb?"
"Climb!" repeated the renegade midshipman with scorn. "Why, man, both those Dreadnought Boys would go in places that it would puzzle a cat to find a footing."
"Then there is your answer. He has escaped by the window."
"Confusion!"
"Yes; but he cannot get far."
"Why not?"
"That window opens on to a roof."
"Yes."
"The roof was once an extension, but now it is blocked in on all sides by the high walls of abandoned sail lofts."
"Then if he did get up there, he is a prisoner?"
"Without doubt."
"Good." The midshipman's face was flushed with malicious triumph. "He can't escape us this time. Saki, somebody, help me up, quick. This time he'll not get away. One Dreadnought Boy is at the bottom of the Sound. In a few minutes the other will be our prisoner."
TABLES TURNED—TWICE!
Herc, crouched within the stifling confines of the upturned packing case, heard the recorded conversation with a sinking heart. After all, then, he had been mistaken. Ned was not in the place.
Some casualty of which he had no knowledge had occurred and in the catastrophe in some way Ned, his chum, his shipmate, had been drowned. Right then Herc would not have given a straw for his own life. The thought that Ned had perished, beat into his heart like a death knell.
Careless of what the consequences to himself might be, he was about to declare himself and trust to his fists to fight his way to liberty, when he hesitated.
Kenworth, he knew by this time to be a miscreantand perverter of the truth. Was it not possible, then, that he had purposely aired the report of Ned's supposed death in the hope that he (Herc) might hear him and in a moment of desperation give himself up?
The theory, based on what the Dreadnought Boy knew of the renegade midshipman, was at least tenable. After a moment's reflection Herc, now that the first shock was over, found himself unable to entertain the thought of Ned's death. It was impossible to believe that Ned Strong, the resourceful, the brave, had perished as Kenworth had described. If a weakling like the midshipman had escaped whatever disaster had happened, it was incredible that Ned had not saved himself.
"Give me a leg up, Saki,—quick; I want to be the first to confront that red-headed idiot."
It was Kenworth speaking again. Herc heard the others hoist more boxes on the top of his pileand then came the sound of scrambling feet ascending the wobbly pyramid.
"Oh, what a sell for them when they find the roof is empty," chuckled Herc to himself. "I'd give a whole lot just to see their faces."
But with this reflection came another thought. When they found the roof tenantless, would they not make a further search of the room? Undoubtedly, and once they began turning things over, one of the first things they would discover would be Herc.
Under certain conditions Herc's mind worked quickly. It did so now. A sudden idea flashed into his head.
In a trice he had slipped out of his box and stood free. Kenworth had already chinned himself through the window and Saki was following him. In the room were only the spectacled Jap, the white man whom Herc had observed enter the place earlier, and one or two other Japs and white men, all hard-looking characters.
As Herc emerged from his box there came a shout from Kenworth on the roof.
"Confound it all, he's not here!"
"Whoop-ee! No, he isn't; he's right here! Wow!" Like a human battering ram, Herc charged at the pile of boxes. Crash! Bang!
The Dreadnought Boy's broad shoulder struck the wobbly pedestal like the prow of a battleship.
"Look out for squalls!" he yelled, as the boxes, in a crashing avalanche, came toppling down. The uproar was deafening.
Stricken temporarily to immobility by the suddenness of the whole thing, the spectacled Jap and the others stood spellbound for an instant as the red-headed youth, having demolished the pile of boxes, came charging at them with his bullet head bent over like a young bull's. As he rushed ferociously at them Herc gave vent to a blood curdling yell.
"Wow! Whoop-ee! Stand aside for the human torpedo!" he bellowed.
Saki, who had been in the act of clambering from the boxes through the window when the box pile collapsed, hung teetering from its ledge with his feet beating a tattoo on thin air. He was howling piteously for aid.
But right then things were moving far too swiftly for anyone to pay the least attention to the luckless Jap.
Herc's red head struck the spectacled Jap in the stomach and butted him clean across the room. He fell jammed into one of the empty packing cases and remained there, his legs waving feebly as though imploring help. One of the hard-looking white men tried to intercept Herc as he dashed for the door, but at the same instant he felt as if a tornado had struck him and he, too, doubled up and went to the floor with a crash.
From the roof came a loud shout from Kenworth.
"What the dickens——!"
He did not need to ask any more. One glance through the window showed him what was happening in the room below him: showed him, too, that he was marooned on the roof even as he had hoped to find Herc.
"Help me! help me!" howled Saki. "No can hold on much longer!"
"Confound you, this is all your fault," shouted Kenworth, beside himself with chagrin. "Hey there! Kester! Vaux! hold that fellow! Don't let him get away; it means all our necks in a halter if you do!"
The two men addressed attempted to seize Herc. But they might as well have tried to capture a young hurricane. The red-headed lad's fighting blood was up. As they tried to intercept him, he rushed them and catching them both around the legs, he brought them down in one grand smash.
As they fell, their heads bumped together with a noise like a pistol shot.
"No more trouble from them," chuckled Herc gleefully.
The red-headed lad was beginning to enjoy himself. The Japs who alone were left standing, were huddled in one corner of the room out of the way of the "white demon with the head of flames."
"Any more?" howled Herc gleefully, and went charging for the door leading into the dark passage. His plan was made. Once he gained the front shop, he meant to force his way out to the street, if possible through the locked portal. If he could not batter his way out there, he meant to smash a window and run at top speed for the authorities.
But as he dashed for the door, there came a yell of dismay and the noise of a heavy fall behind him. Kenworth, half through the window, had been trying to assist Saki. But he lost his balance just as the weight of the Jap came onhim, and together he and Saki had come crashing down to the floor of the room below.
Luckily for them, the two men that Herc had just attended to lay there and their bodies broke the force of the fall. Not injured in the least, owing to this—for him—lucky accident, Kenworth was on his feet again in the wink of an eyelid.
As Herc's form vanished through the doorway, he drew a revolver and in the insane fury of his rage, fired a shot at the Dreadnought Boy's fleeing form. Herc felt the breeze of the bullet as it winged past him and buried itself harmlessly in the wall.
"Blaze away!" he shouted. "In five minutes' time I'll have the whole boiling of you in——"
The sentence was not completed. In the room he had left behind him, the spectacled Jap, who had recovered his wits, had darted for a lever in the wall. He pulled it toward him.
At the same instant, Herc felt the floor of the passage drop from under his feet and found himself falling, falling, falling into a black void, while fires and lightnings wheeled and darted wildly through his confused brain.
IN FRESH TERROR.
Herc landed with a crash on something soft and yielding. For an instant or two he actually found himself wondering if he had been killed, but as soon as his rudely jolted senses reasserted themselves he found that, thanks to the soft substance he had landed upon, he was not even sprained.
"Well, here's a nice kettle of fish!" exclaimed Herc to himself, rubbing his head ruefully. "I'm a whole lot worse off now than I was before."
He sat up and tried to collect his thoughts. A moment's reflection placed him pretty well in possession of the facts as they were. He had been dashing at top speed down the dark passage when he suddenly found himself precipitated into space. There had been no trap-door or openingin the passage when he came down it before, of that he was certain; therefore it was plain that some sort of device must have been operated to open a pitfall under his feet and prevent his escape.
"The question now is, though, where am I?" mused Herc.
All about him was velvety blackness, so dark that it could almost be felt. The air was filled with an odd kind of musty odor, a damp reek as of some place infested with fungus growth and unclean things.
"Some sort of a cellar," thought the lad, "and it's not likely there's any way out of it but the way I came. There might be a ladder there, of course, but I didn't notice it as I came down. Ouch! what a bump! I'm lucky it didn't break every bone in my body."
Herc felt in his pockets for his matchbox. Having found it, he struck a lucifer. By its lighthe made a brief but comprehensive survey of his surroundings.
He had fallen on a rotting pile of what appeared to be old sails, or canvas from which sails were made. From this he judged that the structure above him must have been at some time occupied by sail-makers, and that this cellar had formed a sort of rubbish heap for the refuse of the place.
For the rest, the lighting of another match showed him that the cellar was about eighty feet square and evidently extended under the whole of the house above. There was no means of egress, and he could not even see the trap-door above him through which he had made such a hasty entrance into the place.
The walls were smooth, and made of some sort of cement. There was no hope of scaling them, even had there been anything to gain by such a proceeding. So far as he could see, Herc was in as effectual a trap as it would have been possibleto devise. Only a ladder could do him any good, and so far as obtaining that was concerned, he felt that he might just as well wish for anything impossible of attainment.
But Herc was not the sort of lad to give anything up without making a try to better his condition. As soon as his head, which had been sadly shaken in his fall, stopped aching a little, he got up from the pile of old sails and began a further examination of the cellar.
The first thing that struck him was that the floor was very wet. Slimy, slippery mud was under foot and a green weed grew wherever it could secure a roothold. His next discovery was that the walls were marked near to the top of the cellar by a distinct line.
Above this line their color was the dirty gray of the cement; but below, it was stained green as if from the action of water. Herc puzzled a good deal over this. He could not account for it by any theory of mere dampness. Just thenhe was far indeed from guessing its true significance.
One thing, however, he was sure of: the cellar was close to the sea, for the sharp, acrid tang of the salt water mingled with the damp, decaying odor of the place, like a healthy, wholesome influence in a fever-stricken hospital ward.
His survey completed, Herc sank back on his pile of old sails to think matters over further. Not that he felt that there was really anything to be considered, save the fact that he was helpless and must depend upon outside aid for escaping from his predicament.
But no outside aid, he knew, was likely to reach him there. He wondered what was going to become of him. Since he had taken that plunge through the suddenly opened trap, he had heard nothing from above, no trample of feet, no sound of voices.
Was it possible that those in the house had deserted it precipitately and had left him thereto perish miserably like a rat in a hole? The thought chilled the hot blood in his veins and started the cold perspiration on his forehead. Herc was no coward, but the thought of facing death alone in that dark, dank hole might have unmanned many a sterner soul than he.
In his despair at the thought that he had been abandoned to his fate, Herc set up shout upon shout. But after a time he stopped this as being a useless waste of strength which it behooved him to husband for he knew not what emergency. Herc was not a lad given to beating about the bush. He faced the bald facts as he found them, and in the present situation he was unable to discover one crumb of comfort.
Then, too, what Kenworth had said about Ned kept recurring to his mind with disquieting effect. He could not bring himself to believe that Ned was, as the midshipman had said, dead at the bottom of the Sound; but nevertheless theidea kept repeating itself over and over in his mind dishearteningly.
"What a fool I was ever to come in here at all," he muttered to himself bitterly. "It all comes of following my nose. Every time I do it, I land in trouble—but this is just about the worst ever. I wonder——"
He broke off short in his half spoken meditations.
A sudden sound had arrested his attention. At first he could not identify it and then suddenly he realized what it was. The tinkle of running water! Water was coming into the cellar from somewhere.
Ned stretched out his fingers for his matchbox, which he had placed near to him, and struck a light. As the lucifer flared up an exclamation of dismay broke from the Dreadnought Boy's lips.
"Good gracious!"
Over the floor of the cellar a thin layer ofwater, perhaps an inch deep, had spread like a liquid carpet. It had not yet reached Herc on his pile of sails, but even while the match burned, he could see that the water was rising.
Chilled with a nameless dread he struck another match. This time he saw where the water was coming from. It was flowing in from an iron-barred vent near the floor of the place, which had escaped him on his previous survey.
At the same instant, Herc thought of the green stain on the cellar walls; that regular line of demarcation limned with greenish water-weed.
Then like a thunder-clap the hideous truth burst upon him: The cellar was below the water level and the water flowing into it was tidal. It came from the sea and rose till it reached that regular high-water mark he had noticed on the cellar wall.
As he realized all this, a shout of terror broke, despite himself, from Herc's lips. Was this to be his fate, his destiny, to perish in this dark,hidden place beneath the waters of the incoming tide?
"Help!" he shouted at the top pitch of his lungs. "Help!"
But the lapping of the water as it slowly and remorselessly rose was the only reply to his wild outburst.
NED'S ESCAPE.
At length the confusion and uproar in the hold of Captain Briggs' schooner died away. The work of unloading the craft was completed.
Ned glanced at his watch. It was close on midnight. He wondered if now that the schooner had been emptied of her secret cargo, his hour of release had come.
But apparently it was no part of Captain Briggs's plan to set his prisoner at liberty just then. At any rate, nobody came near Ned.
He felt strangely lonely now that the tumult had died out, to be succeeded by a death-like stillness. But after a time, during which he sought in vain for a lamp to light up the cabin, Ned was able to distinguish some sounds that broke the silence.
The sounds were nasal and were in three keys. In fact, it did not take Ned long to distinguish in his own mind the loud snoring of Captain Briggs from the gruntings and snortings of his crew.
The night was warm and they were plainly enough taking their rest on deck after the arduous labors of the night. Inasmuch as the schooner lay in a lonely cove out of the path of navigation, it was also evident that Captain Briggs had not bothered to set a bright watch.
"Now is my chance," thought Ned, "if only I could figure on some way of getting out of this coop."
He sat on the transom a while, buried in thought. He was revolving in his mind the strange events of the last twenty-four hours and the possible effect they would have upon his future.
Well did Ned know that his absence from his ship must have been noticed by this time. Hewondered what Commander Dunham was thinking. He speculated, and the thought was not a pleasant one, on the chances of his being deemed derelict to his duty, and being supplanted by someone else.
The Dreadnought Boy knew the iron rules of the navy, laws as inflexible as those of the Medes and Persians. He might be deprived of his temporary commission without even a chance to explain all that had happened. One thought cheered him. Come what might, he at least had safe within his pocket the book of plans by which Kenworth and Saki set such store.
He hoped that if the worst came to the worst, the signal service he had rendered his country in redeeming these from the desperate hands of the spy and the renegade would at least plead some extenuation for him.
"Confound that old shell-back of a Briggs," growled Ned to himself; "if it hadn't been forhim I might have been back with my ship by this time. As it is——"
Captain Briggs' stentorian snore filled in the pause eloquently. "At any rate," muttered Ned, "he's safe off in the land of Nod; so, to judge by the sounds, are his crew. What's the matter with—Jove! I'll try it."
He ascended the cabin stairway and began cautiously to fumble with the fastenings of the companionway scuttle. He did not dare make much noise, as, although he was fairly sure that Captain Briggs was beyond an easy awakening, yet the risk of rousing him was an imminent one.
Like everything else about Captain Briggs' schooner, the scuttle, now that Ned came to prove it, did not appear to be over and above secure.
"I believe that with good luck I can force it clean off its hinges," murmured Ned as he investigated.
Indeed it seemed so. The door worked about on its hinges so freely, it showed that those attachmentswere not securely fastened or else, as was more likely, the wood had rotted about the screws.
Ned possessed a good stock of patience and he took plenty of time, working the door about till it moved easily. Then he placed his shoulder to it and gave a gentle but strong heave. The screws drew out of the rotten wood as if they had been fastened into cheese.
Five minutes after he had first applied his strength, Ned, feeling like a modern Samson, lifted off the door of his place of captivity and was ready to step out on deck.
But first he took a cautious look about him. There was a bright moon. By its beams Ned saw that, as he had suspected, Captain Briggs and his crew, worn out by their night's work, were sleeping the sleep of the just. They had turned in "all standing" and lay sprawled on the deck in any but picturesque attitudes.
"So far, so good," murmured Ned to himself,"and the dinghy's out astern, too. Better and better. I believe that this is going to go through without a hitch."
He cautiously replaced the hatchway and stepped boldly out on the deck. Captain Briggs stirred in his slumbers and growled out some orders that came to him in his dreams.
"Stand by to go about! Mind sheets and braces!" he muttered.
"My! but he's going to be a surprised man when he wakes up!" grinned Ned to himself. "I'm sorry for his crew; he'll take it out on them, for I verily believe that the old shell-back thought I was some boy millionaire and worth at least a thousand in reward money to him."
But as chance would have it, it was Ned who was destined to be surprised first.
Hardly had he stepped on deck, when from forward a squat shape came bounding across the moonlit decks. Simultaneously a low, angry growl greeted the Dreadnought Boy's ears.
"Great guns! The skipper's dog! I'd clean forgotten him," exclaimed Ned in dismay.
The dog hesitated a minute, sniffed and then, with an angry snarl, came bounding on again.
"If I can't silence him, he'll have them all awake in a minute, and then I'll have a fine hornet's nest about my ears," muttered Ned.
Ur-r-r-r-r-r-r-r! The dog sprang straight for Ned's throat. Luckily, the creature was not one of the barking kind. He plainly preferred action to noise.
Ned saw him coming. Saw the white flash of his teeth in the moonlight. Swift as thought he stooped and picked up a barrel stave which happened to be lying near his feet.
As the dog was in mid-spring, Ned let fly with his improvised weapon. Crack! It struck the dog right across the nose and sent him hurtling back in a coiled-up ball.
"Jove! I hated to do that, old fellow," criedNed in a low tone; "but it had to be, and you'll soon get over it."
The dog lay crouched in a whimpering heap not far from Captain Briggs' side. Ned dared not delay longer. With swift, silent strides he made for the stern, dropped overboard and landed deftly in the dinghy.
The oars were in it, and to cast off was the work of an instant only. Then with strong, noiseless strokes, he pulled toward the shore. There was not a sound of pursuit from the schooner and Ned's heart leaped exultingly as he threw his strength into the oars.
Ten minutes later the dinghy's nose scraped the beach. At precisely the same instant the bow of Ned's craft was grasped by a pair of strong hands, and a gruff voice demanded to know his business.