“Wow! Help! Let me out! I’m suffocating!” yelled Herc, beginning to regard his imprisonment seriously. On deck the ensign had the boat crew lined up.
“Get aboard, men, and hurry back to the ship,” he ordered; “we’ve spent enough time here.”
He thanked the old Yankee skipper for his hospitality, and the commander of the old convict craft was profuse in his gratitude for the assistance Uncle Sam’s navy had extended him.
In the meantime, Herc’s absence had been noted. Ned stepped up to the ensign and, saluting, reported:—
“Taylor is missing, sir.”
“Missing?”
“Yes, sir. He’s not here.”
[168]
“Very extraordinary. What can have become of him?”
“I can’t imagine, sir. We were below together when we heard the whistle, and I only discovered his absence a minute ago.”
“Brick top’s in trouble again,” whispered the boat’s crew.
“I can’t make out how he could vanish on board a small ship like this,” exclaimed the ensign in a puzzled tone. “Confound that boy, he’s always getting into some mischief or other.”
“Had we better scatter and look for him, sir?” inquired Ned.
“Yes, do so. Carry on, and be as quick as you can. The commander will be seriously annoyed if we don’t hurry back on board.”
The men followed Ned below. All sorts of conjectures were made as to what had become of their ship-mate. In the meantime, Herc was shouting his head off in the cell and realizing to the full the horrors of solitary confinement in such a place.
[169]
But the door was thick and his voice hardly penetrated outside. It was by the merest chance that one of the men caught a faint echo of his yells. He reported to Ned at once and they traced the sounds to the door.
“Is that you, Herc?” shouted Ned through the door.
“Yes, what’s left of me. Wow! Let me out of here quick, if you ever want to see me again before I’m melted.”
The skipper of the Victory was summoned and the door was soon opened. Out came a very red-faced, perspiring Dreadnought Boy.
“Well, you’re a nice specimen,” exclaimed Ned. “How in the world did you get into such a fix?”
“I just looked in to see what that hole in the wall was like and the door slammed to on me,” exclaimed Herc. “Gracious, but I’m glad to get out again. Talk about our brig, why it’s a palace compared to that cell!”
“And yet men were placed in there for voyages[170] of a hundred days and more,” said the captain of the Victory.
“Hurry up on deck, men,” ordered Ned. “Come along, Herc. I guess your troubles are only beginning.”
“What do you mean?”
“That you’ll have to go to the mast for disobedience of orders.”
“How could I help it if the door shut on me?”
“You shouldn’t have gone in there after the whistle blew. It was your duty to go on deck at once.”
“I don’t see that I’m to blame.”
“I guess the captain will take a different view. You’ve held up the fleet for half an hour.”
“Well, it isn’t every seaman that could do that,” said Herc with a grin as he fell into line.
Ned was right. On their return to the ship the ensign in charge of the party got a severe lecture for wasting time, and in ord............