THE MYSTERY SOLVED.
The three middies raced to the upper deck just in time to see Nanny,
white-faced and trembling, emerge from the after conning tower.
“Murder! help! help!” he wailed. “Oh, Clif, some one is down there. I
heard a voice singing. Oh, let’s go away.”
“What is the matter?” demanded Joy, striving hard to conceal a laugh.
“What in thunder did you see?”
“N-nothing, but I heard a cracked kind of a voice,” whimpered the
little lad, almost in tears. “It--it seemed to come from the roof. Oh,
the old tub is haunted! Let’s leave.”
“Never mind, youngster,” said Clif, kindly. “We heard the voice, too.
There’s some mystery about it, but it isn’t ghosts. That’s silly. Did
you get the matches?”
Nanny shook his head vigorously. Trolley went forward and presently
returned with a box he found in the captain’s cabin. Five minutes
later a dense smoke was pouring from the after funnel.
“I am afraid it is too late,” remarked Clif, watching the distant speck
on the horizon. “That craft is bound south, and we are way to the
eastward of her.”
“There is one thing we forgot when we were down aft,” suddenly observed
Joy, placing one hand in the region of his fifth button. “We clean
forgot the grub.”
“That’s true,” agreed Trolley.
“I won’t go down there if I starve,” came from Nanny, his face paling.
“We will have to do something,” said Clif, decisively. “There must be
food on board, and water, too. I saw several boxes and tanks below. I
don’t like the shades of departed Frenchmen, but I’ll do a great deal
to keep from starving.”
“Suppose we go down and make plenty noise,” suggested Trolley. “We take
clubs and--wait a bit.”
He hurried forward, and presently reappeared from the officers’
quarters with one hand clutching a pistol and the other a long,
wicked-looking sword. Flourishing the latter, he cried:
“I cut the neck of any ghost now. Come! we march down right away.”
“He! he!” laughed Nanny; “Trolley, you have a different class of ghosts
in Japan than those in other countries, I guess. Swords and guns are no
good.”
“We try, anyway,” placidly replied the Japanese youth. “Who come with
me?”
“All of us,” promptly announced Clif.
“Who go first?” was Trolley’s next question.
“You, confound your thick head!” retorted Joy. “Haven’t you got the
weapons?”
Seeing no loophole, the Jap gingerly approached the door of the conning
tower. Clif, who was close behind, suddenly uttered a deep groan.
Trolley dropped the sword and made a wild leap backward. A series of
weird Japanese expletives came from his lips, then his jaw dropped when
he caught sight of Clif’s laughing face.
“Oh, you fool me, eh?” he said, slowly. “Well, I go down and fool
ghost.”
With that he vanished through the open door of the conning tower.
“We can’t let him have all the fun,” declared Clif. “Come on.”
When the three--Nanny accompanied them--reached the lower deck they
found Trolley seated upon a chest, calmly surveying the field. He held
the revolver in one hand, and the sword at a parry in the other.
“No hear anything yet,” he said, grinning. “I guess----”
“Jose! Jose!”
“Gosh! there it is again,” ejaculated Nanny. “Let’s go back. I don’t
want----”
“_Jose! tengo hombre! Dame un galleta._”
The words ended in a wail that sent cold chills through the cadets. For
a moment it was in the minds of all to beat a hasty retreat, but Clif
set his teeth, and said, determinedly:
“I won’t be frightened away from here again. Some one is playing us a
scurvy trick. That wasn’t French; it was Spanish. If any chump----”
“_Ach, du lieber!_”
Clif sat down upon a pile of hammocks and held up both hands in
disgust.
“And German, too!” he exclaimed. “Now what on earth does it mean? Where
is the fellow, anyway?”
Joy was hungrily overhauling a locker which seemed filled with
inviting-looking cans and jars.
“Don’t ask any foolish questions,” he said. “Here’s potted meats and
jams and ship biscuit. Nanny, you half-sized idiot, get some water out
of that breaker, and be durned quick about it.”
It was well on toward noon, and the boys were beginning to feel the
gnawing of their naturally healthy appetites. They were also growing
accustomed to the mysterious voice, so without more ado they joined Joy
in his onslaught on the contents of the locker.
They were not disturbed while they attended to the pleasant business
before them, so they made out fairly well.
“For this make us truly thankful,” said Joy, with a satisfied sigh as
he polished off the last morsel before him.
“I say,” spoke up Nanny, “we’re better off than that cad, Judson
Greene, even if we have a polyglot ghost in our midst.”
“Judson is bound to return,” said Clif, grimly. “When he does we’ll
have a reckoning.”
Trolley lazily threw himself back upon a bench and observed:
“What we do now, fellows? We no can stay out here. Maybe ship no come.”
“What do you propose, your highness?” asked Joy, with fine sarcasm.
“Shall we walk or take a cake of soap and wash ourselves ashore?”
“It’s a pity we can’t carry _Le Destructeur_ into some port,” said
Clif, musingly. “She seems to be seaworthy, and I guess the coal supply
is all right.”
Trolley sat up and brought his hands together with an emphatic gesture.
“We do it; we do it,” he cried, excitedly. “I know how to run marine
engine. I learn a little in Japan. Hurray! you be captain, and I be
engineer. Hurray!”
Clif stared at him for a moment, then his face brightened.
“By George, Trolley, that’s the very ticket,” he exclaimed. “If you can
run an engine we’ll take the old tank into the nearest port. There are
charts and instruments in the captain’s cabin. And there are four of
us--five if that chump comes back--and we ought to do it.”
Clif began to pace up and down the narrow room. That he was greatly
taken with the idea was plainly evident. Suddenly while he chanced to
be near the extreme after end, the mysterious voice wailed:
“_Ach, du lieber! Carramba! Dame agua pronto!_”
With a bound Clif reached the spot whence the sound seemed to come. He
grasped the knob of a small trap-door in the wooden lining of the hull,
and gave a quick wrench.
Something fluttered out and fell to the floor with a flapping of wings.
It was a parrot!
“Ha! ha! ha!”
“Ho! ho! This is rich!”
“Ha! ha! If I d-don’t stop laughing I’ll die!” gasped Clif. “Fancy
being--ha! ha!--fooled by a pet parrot.”
The four boys were rolling upon the floor in an ecstasy of mirth. And
over in the corner, eying them solemnly, was the parrot.
The poor bird was thin and its feathers hung down in a bedraggled
manner. It looked as if it had undergone a siege with a cage full of
monkeys.
“He! he!” it suddenly cackled. “_Povre Juanito! Tengo sed. Ach, du
lieber! Sacre!_”
Clif moistened several sea biscuit in water and fed the starved bird.
Then the boys enjoyed another fit of laughing and went on deck.
Their relief was manifest. The discovery of the parrot, which had
evidently been shut in by accident, explained a great deal, and it
drove away all uncanny suspicions.
After a brief consultation it was decided that Clif should act as
captain and steersman, Trolley as engineer, and Joy and Nanny as
firemen.
“If Judson turns up,” said Clif, glancing at the distant speck which
represented the launch, “we’ll make him shovel coal all night.”
Trolley hurried below into the after engine-room to overhaul the
machinery, while the three others prepared to start fires.
Blouses were stripped off and the trio fell to work with a will. The
oily waste lighted before had died out, but another fire was soon
ignited, and within half an hour the furnace was roaring.
Presently Trolley, greasy and black, joined them. There was a satisfied
smile on his face.
“I find everything shipshape,” he said. “The engine in fine condition.”
He glanced at the steam gauge and added:
“Hurray! we soon be ready to start. You better look up charts and
things, Clif.”
Faraday thought the advice good, so he hurried to the conning tower.
He found the compass in its usual place; and stowed away in a little
locker were two sextants and a chronometer.
The latter had stopped, however, and it was useless to him. A log-book
written in French, bore as the last date the tenth of June. The
observation for that noon was a degree of longitude near the coast of
France.
“The boat has been driven to sea by some severe gale,” he reasoned.
“That’s plain enough. But why did the crew leave her so abruptly, and
what killed that man in the conning tower?”
These thoughts occupied his mind as he rummaged about the little
apartment. He was in search of a chart. Finding none, he descended to
the room used as the officers’ mess. Forward of this was the captain’s
cabin, and directly aft the stateroom occupied by the other officer,
who, on vessels of the _Le Destructeur_ class, does duty both on deck
and in the engine-room.
Noticing a heap of _débris_ in the center consisting of clothing,
bedding and riffraff of every description, Clif raked it aside.
To his surprise, he saw undeniable traces of fire. The flooring was
eaten away or charred, and a hole gaped beneath his feet. Upon part of
a wooden hatch was stamped a word which sent a flood of light through
the lad. It was:
“_Magasin._”
“The magazine!” Clif exclaimed, aloud. “It is where they kept the
torpedo charges. And it has been on fire! Gorry! no wonder they fled.”
It was plain enough now. The boat had caught fire while at sea. An
attempt had been made to extinguish the flames, but without success.
The dread belief that the flames would reach the powder and gun cotton
had sent the crew away in a panic.
And the dead man?
“There is only one explanation,” muttered Clif. “He was caught in the
conning tower by the jamming of the door, and the fright killed him.
Gorry! no wonder. Waiting for a ton of gun cotton to explode under
one’s feet is enough to kill anybody.”
That the fire did not reach the explosives was evident. The rolling
and pitching of the boat had probably tossed a lot of dunnage upon the
flames and extinguished them.
Clif hastened forward to acquaint his companions with the discovery. He
found the steam whistling merrily from the exhaust pipes. Trolley was
trying the engine, and the other two were still feeding the furnace.
Clif’s explanations were received with wonder. Nanny anxiously inquired
if the fire was really out and, on being assured that it was, he
returned to his task of shoveling.
Twenty minutes later the Japanese youth announced with a triumphant
blast of the whistle that all was in readiness for a start.
Clif had succeeded in finding a book of charts. After careful figuring,
he decided on a course. It was more or less guesswork, but he believed
that he could at least take _Le Destructeur_ into the path of vessels
bound to the Mediterranean.
Taking his place at the wheel, the young captain signaled the
engine-room. Trolley responded gallantly, and the torpedo boat’s screw
began to revolve.
An enthusiastic cheer came from the fire-room force which had hastened
to the upper deck to see the start.
Clif found the steering rather difficult at first, but he soon learned
the wheel and brought the bow around toward the speck on the distant
horizon which represented the launch.
“We can’t leave Judson out here even if he is a double-dyed-in-the-wool
traitor,” he announced.
When the launch was brought within plain view it was seen that Greene
had tacked, and it was evident he wished to regain the torpedo boat.
It did not take long to bring him alongside. He glanced sheepishly at
the occupants of the deck when he finally crawled aboard.
The engines had been stopped and the four cadets were prepared to meet
him.
Clif had his blouse off and his sleeves rolled up. Stepping forward, he
said, peremptorily:
“Shed that blouse of yours, Greene.”
“What for?” demanded Judson, in evident alarm.
“You’ve got to whip me or take the worst hiding you ever received. Off
with it. I’ll sail in, in about five seconds.”
“But----”
“Off with it.”
Judson sullenly obeyed, and stood on the defensive. Clif proceeded to
business at once, and the two were soon dealing blows right and left.
The other cadets looked on with grins of delight.
Clif had not only might but right on his side, and in a very short
period Judson was crying “enough.” Then Trolley whacked him several
times, and Joy added his share. To wind up the punishment, little Nanny
administered a few well-directed kicks.
“Now, sir,” said Clif, sternly, “just thank your lucky stars that we
didn’t leave you to the sharks. Go below and get something to eat.”
The engine was kept going until midnight, then as the boys were tired
out, the fires were banked and watches arranged.
At daybreak little Nanny, who had the last tour of duty, espied a sail
off the starboard bow.
He aroused the others, and steam was started at once. In time it became
apparent to the excited boys that there was something familiar about
the outlines of the ship.
“Hurray! hurray! it is the old _Monongahela_,” shouted Trolley, at
last. “She come to look for us. Hurray!”
“I don’t think it is anything to cheer about,” sighed Joy, gloomily.
“Ain’t we all right aboard here? Huh! now we’ll be plebes again, when
we’ve been captains, and engineers, and--and coal heavers. I think it’s
a shame.”
The rest rather agreed with him, nevertheless they were glad to see the
practice ship.
When it became known on board the _Monongahela_ who the occupants of
the torpedo boat were the wildest excitement ensued.
A boat was lowered and the castaways--not forgetting the parrot--were
carried back in triumph.
Clif and his companions were the heroes of the hour, and they were
received with special distinction on the quarter-deck. They were
delighted to learn that the other boats had been picked up and no
lives lost in the catastrophe.
The torpedo boat was manned by a picked crew from the _Monongahela_ and
convoyed by that vessel to the mouth of the Tagus River.
The French Government was advised at once and word presently came that
_Le Destructeur’s_ former crew had been long since rescued.
By the time the _Monongahela_ was ready to proceed up the Tagus to
Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, a French gunboat was on hand to tow
the torpedo boat back to Havre.
And so ended Clif’s first command.