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.

[Pg 247]

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. He[Pg 248] wondered 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 for[Pg 249] him 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 attachments[Pg 250] were not securely fastened or else, as was more likely, the wood had............