An hour had passed since Herc's despairing cry had reverberated through the gloomy cellar.

Since his vain appeal for help, the Dreadnought Boy had sat, sunk in a sort of lethargy, on the pile of sail. As the water grew higher, he had mechanically dragged the heap of canvas closer together, raising it and forming a sort of island above the rising inundation.

It was the instinct of life fighting against despair, for that he could ever escape from his prison Herc had long since deemed an impossibility.

He sat there in the darkness listening to the lapping of the water against the walls. His head was sunk in his hands and as the heavy minutes went by, from time to time he would feel the[Pg 262] water to convince himself that it actually was rising.

The high water mark on the cellar walls told him how high the tide usually climbed. Long before it had reached that mark the water would be over his head.

It was true that Herc was a first-rate swimmer, strong of limb and sound of wind. But what would that avail him, except to prolong his misery?

Already in prospect he had tasted the bitterness of the last struggle against the incoming flood of waters, the battle that grew hourly less vigorous, and then the final chapter when, too exhausted to fight longer for his life, the slimy waters would engulf him.

He wondered dully if they would ever find him. It seemed hardly likely. Who would dream of looking for him in that place? Again and again he reproached himself bitterly for the mad folly that had led him into such a trap.

[Pg 263]

The fault was his. There was no one else to blame for it. Had he not acted so hastily on impulse, all might have been well with him. Too late he realized that he had accomplished no useful purpose by penetrating into the haunt of the spies. It would have been wisdom's part first to have notified the authorities and then made his attack on the place.

"Well, I've been a chump and this is what I get for it," muttered the lad bitterly. "Good old Ned, I can't believe that he is really dead. I wonder if he'll ever learn how I ended my life in this wretched rat-hole of a place. It's a tough way to die. I wouldn't mind facing death in battle or in line of duty, but to die like this alone, in the dark, with the tide water waiting to drag me down——"

Herc pursued this line of thought no further. It bade fair to unman him. He felt a desperate desire to hurl himself against the walls, to shout, to scream, to do anything to avert his fate. But[Pg 264] he knew that nothing short of a miracle could save him now.

He struck one of his few remaining matches. The water was up to his feet!

Herc gave a groan. It was fairly forced from him. As the match spluttered out, he knew that before very long he would feel the chilly grasp of the tide at his knees, then at his waist, and then as it rose inch by inch, it would engulf him to his neck.

Then would come the struggle for life, the hopeless battle against overwhelming odds, and then—the end.

Fairly driven wild by these reflections, the unfortunate lad shouted and raved till his voice grew hoarse. But there was no answer except the ripple of the water against the cement walls and the hollow echo of his shouts as they were flung back mockingly at him.

He felt a sharp shock as the water whelmed[Pg 265] over his island of canvas. In a few minutes more it was at his waist.

Herc stood up erect and stepped off his little pile of canvas, now useless as an isle of safety. He kindled another match.

The yellow flame sputtered up and showed him the water all about him. It was knee deep and appeared to be coming in more rapidly. Over its surface was spread an oily scum from the damp floor.

Herc was glad when the match died out. He determined not to light any more, but to wait his end with as much courage as he could muster.

"I'll fight it out like a man-o'-war's-man, anyhow," he muttered, "but it's tough—tough to have to go this way."

The water rose inch by inch as remorselessly as destiny itself. Herc stood in stoical silence and felt it creeping up his body till it had reached his chest.

[Pg 266]

Only a few moments more, now, and then—the end.

Herc found himself growing strangely calm. He wondered what they would think on the ship when he failed to return. If his messmates would miss him, if Ned was safe and sound and would ever learn how his shipmate had perished.

The water was up to his chin.

A slight movement on the lad's part and a tiny wavelet spattered against his mouth. He tasted the brackish water of the tide. Herc wished that it would end right then and there. He felt that it was hardly w............