HERC LEARNS WHAT "THE BRIG" IS.
In a few minutes the messenger returned with the master-at-arms, who
saluted the officer of the deck, who in turn gravely saluted him. Herc,
feeling that he should do something, saluted each of them in turn,
concluding his respectful motions with a deep bow.
Neither officer, however, paid any more attention to the lad than if he
had been carved out of wood.
"Master-at-arms!" began the officer.
"Yes, sir," responded the master-at-arms, bringing his heels together
with a sharp click.
"There has been a flagrant breach of discipline here, which it is
my duty to report to the captain at once. You will place this man,
Ordinary Seaman Taylor, under restraint, and arraign him at the mast at
one o'clock with the other prisoners."
"Yes, sir," nodded the master-at-arms, edging up to the dismayed Herc.
"Kennell, if you wish to prefer a complaint against this man Taylor,
you may," went on the officer.
"I do, sir, certainly," said Kennell earnestly, through the paint that
smothered his face; "but first, sir, I should like to clean this mess
off, sir."
"You will be relieved from duty while you do. Carry on, men."
The officer of the deck faced about and walked aft; no doubt to
acquaint the captain with the details of the occurrences on the forward
deck.
"Come, wake up," said the master-at-arms to Herc, who was in a
semi-stupor at the horrifying idea that he was under arrest. "Come with
me."
"What! I'm to be locked up?" gasped Herc.
"Yes, in the brig."
In an instant the recollection of the boys' conversation with old Tom
on the day they joined the ship flashed into Herc's mind. So then
"the brig" that the old tar had been so reluctant to talk about, was
the place in which they locked up malefactors and disgracers of the
service, of whom it seemed he was one. Poor Herc felt ready to drop
with shame and humiliation as--under the eyes of the hundreds of
jackies going about their various tasks--he was marched aft by the
master-at-arms. There was only one drop of relief in his bitter cup. It
came when Ned pressed forward, at the risk of being severely reproved.
"Never mind, Herc, old fellow," he breathed. "I know you were in the
right, and I'll see that Kennell gets what's coming to him, if it's the
last thing I do."
"Come, sir! carry on," snapped the master-at-arms, who had pretended
not to notice the first part of this conversation, being a really
kind-hearted man, although bound by discipline, just as is every one
else in the navy; "you must know it is a breach of discipline to talk
to prisoners."
Prisoners!
Poor Herc groaned aloud.
"Come, come," comforted the master-at-arms, "it isn't as bad as all
that. I am confident that you can clear yourself. Besides, it is your
first offense, and you are a recruit, so perhaps the old man will be
easy on you."
"It isn't that, so much as it's the disgrace of being arrested like
this," burst out Herc.
"Oh, well, you shouldn't go to fighting, then," remarked the
master-at-arms, pulling open a steel-studded door and thrusting Herc
before him into a narrow passage, lighted by electric bulbs, down one
side of which was fitted a row of steel-barred cells.
"We're a bit crowded," he remarked, "so I can't give you a cell to
yourself. When a ship puts to sea out of a port there are generally a
lot of men to be disciplined. Those who have overstayed their leave,
and so forth. Therefore, I'll have to put you in here."
He opened a door as he spoke, and pushed Herc into a cell in which two
other men were already seated on a narrow bench which ran along one
side.
"You'll get a full ration at eight bells, for which you are lucky,"
remarked the master-at-arms; "the others get only bread and water."
Clang!
The steel door swung to, and Herc, for the first time in his life, was
a prisoner.
It did not make the experience any the less bitter to know that he was
a captive and disgraced through no fault of his own, unless it had been
from his exuberant swinging of the paint-pot in the enthusiasm of his
newly-acquired "sea-legs."
The Dreadnought Boy, despite his unpleasant situation, was naturally
inquisitive enough to gaze about him on his surroundings. The cell
itself was a steel-walled apartment about twelve feet square with
no other furnishings than the narrow bench, which also was of steel.
It was lighted by an electric bulb, set deep in the ceiling and
barred off, so that it could not be tampered with by a meddlesome
prisoner. The walls of this place were painted white. The floors
red. It was insufferably hot and stuffy, and the songs of a group of
roisterers confined in another cell, which broke forth as soon as the
master-at-arms departed, did not tend to make the environment any
pleasanter.
"So this is the brig," mused Herc, "well, they can have it for all I
want with it. It's not much better than the hog-pen at home."
One of Herc's fellow prisoners, who had been sitting sullenly on the
bench, now arose and began to pace back and forth. His companion did
likewise. They had not paid the slightest attention to Herc hitherto,
but now one of them spoke.
"What you in for, kid?"
"I guess you'll have to ask the master-at-arms," rejoined Herc, who was
not prepossessed by his questioner's appearance. He was a heavy-set,
low-browed man, with a pair of black eyebrows that almost met in the
center of his forehead, giving him a sinister aspect. His companion was
slight, and long-legged, with a delicate--almost an effeminate--cast of
features.
"Oh, well, if you don't want to talk you don't have to," growled the
heavy-browed man. "Say, Carl," he went on, turning to his companion,
"this is a nice, sociable cellmate they've given us, isn't it?"
"You attend to your own affairs, Silas," snarled the other, who did not
seem to be any more amiable than his heavy-browed friend; "leave the
kid alone. We've got trouble enough of our own, haven't we?"
"Hum, yes; but overstaying leave isn't such a very serious matter, and
think of the reward that's ahead in store for us. Only this cruise,
and----"
"Hush!" broke in the one addressed as Carl, with an angry intonation;
"you must be a fool to talk like that in front of the kid," he went on
in a low undertone.
"Pshaw!" snarled the other in the same low voice, however. "He's just
a country Reuben, with the hayseed still in his hair and the smell of
the hog-pen on him--like that one we gambled with in New York--Hank
Harkins--wasn't that his name?--on the old 'Idy'."
"Just the same, it's well to be prudent," counseled the other, and fell
once more to his pacing of the cell.
As for Herc, to whom all this, including the reference to Hank, had
been, as Carl had guessed, so much Greek, he laid down at full length
on the bench. As he had not had more than a few winks of sleep during
his seasick night, he soon dropped off into peaceful slumber, despite
his uncomfortable couch and serious position.
How long he slept, he did not know, but he woke with a start, and was
about to open his eyes, when he suddenly closed them again and feigned
deep slumber.
He had heard something being discussed by the two men with whom he
shared the cell that set his pulse to stirring and his heart to beating
a wild tattoo.
The boy realized that the safety of one of the United States' greatest
naval secrets lay, for the time being, in his hands.