A STRANGE RETURN.
"You say Seaman Strong made his way after the men you suspected, and
that was the last you saw of him?"
Rear-Admiral Gibbons, Captain Dunham and several other officers were
seated in a room on the lower floor of the hotel at which the banquet
that had ended so disastrously for the inventor, Varian, had taken
place.
Herc shifted uneasily on his feet. He felt alarmed before this
glittering court of inquiry that had convened as soon as it became
apparent that the absence of Henry Varian, discovered shortly before
midnight, was no mere accident.
"Yes, sir," he replied to Captain Dunham, who had put the question.
"Can it be possible that the man Strong was in league with the
miscreants? The circumstances seem very suspicious," put in the
rear-admiral.
"I think, sir," said Captain Dunham, "that we shall find, when the
mysterious affair is sifted, that young Strong acted the part of a
United States sailor in the matter. I have kept a careful eye on him,
and should be loath to believe him anything else than an upright,
honest young fellow of uncommon capability."
"Good for you," thought Herc to himself.
"And what were you doing all this time?" inquired one of the officers
of the embarrassed witness.
"Picking stickers out of myself, sir."
"What! Be careful, young man; this is no time for levity."
"Well, sir, I guess if you had fallen into a tack-tus bush you'd have
been picking those vegetable tenpenny nails out of your system for
a while, too," replied Herc in an aggrieved tone, while suspicious
twitches appeared about the corners of the mouths of several of the
assembly. Rear-Admiral Gibbons got up and gazed out of the window for a
moment to conceal his smiles at the naïve rejoinder of the red-headed
youth.
Suddenly he turned, with a sharp exclamation.
"Gentlemen," he exclaimed, "here comes the automobile, or one just like
it, that those two precious rascals, the Pulsifers, used. I've seen it
before. As it was the only one in Guantanamo, I remarked it especially."
The officers crowded to the window, and Herc would have joined them,
but a marine barred his way.
"Get back, young feller," he warned, suggestively pointing his bayonet.
"Huh! I guess you never had a friend in trouble," grunted Herc, going
back to his witness chair in high dudgeon.
But the auto, instead of coming up to the hotel, turned off two blocks
below.
"Possibly I was mistaken," said the admiral. "Those two figures in
it didn't look like the two scoundrels, but at the distance it is
impossible to tell."
"In any event, sir, they cannot escape from Cuba," spoke up one of the
officers. "Every port has been telegraphed. Their capture is almost
certain."
This was indeed the case. An investigation of the garden had shown
clear indications of the struggle that had taken place there the
night before, and servants had been discovered who had seen the
inventor issuing into the garden with the unsavory Pulsifers. The
odor of chloroform still clinging to the grass decided the matter, and
completed the chain of circumstantial evidence. Herc, too, had been
able to supplement the mute testimony by his story of the convict film
and the names of the conspirators. Already a launch full of marines had
been sent to Boco del Toros to intercept the yacht Carl and Silas had
mentioned in the lad's hearing.
This much having been done, a code message had been sent to the
secretary of the navy, who had at once ordered every port in Cuba
watched, and detailed secret service men in the United States to
special duty to apprehend the Pulsifers if they attempted to land in
America.
The examination of Herc, who was, of course, the principal witness,
went on.
At its conclusion an officer of the _Illinois_ begged permission to ask
one more question.
"My man, did you or your friend talk over this step of his?"
"Not any more than I have told you, sir," rejoined Herc, somewhat
puzzled.
"I submit, sir," remarked the officer, turning to the rear-admiral,
"this looks somewhat as if the lad was in league with the Pulsifers.
We know now, from what this lad has told us, that other members of the
crew were disaffected; possibly Strong was bribed, too."
"You don't know Ned Strong, sir," spoke up Herc, "or----"
"Silence, sir!" thundered the officer.
"Huh!" grunted Herc, in a low tone, however.
"As I was saying, sir, the whole thing looks, as you said, suspicious.
We know that the lad was recently placed in the forward turret of
the _Manhattan_, and would have had an opportunity to examine the
breechblock of the Varian gun. He might even have made rough drawings
of it."
"What you say is plausible, Captain Stirling," nodded the rear-admiral
gravely.
"I don't believe a word of it!" snapped Captain Dunham hotly. "I'll
stake a good deal on that youngster's honesty, and----"
"You'll win!" came a crisp voice from the rear of the room.
The officers turned, amazed, and set up a shout of astonishment as
they beheld, framed in the door which they had entered noiselessly,
the figures of the inventor, and, standing, cap in hand, by his side,
the Dreadnought Boy, the lad to whose pluck and resourcefulness the
inventor largely owed his liberty.
"I repeat it, gentlemen," went on the inventor, for it was he who had
voiced the interruption; "there isn't a finer, more capable or grittier
lad in the service to-day than Ned Strong of the _Manhattan_."
"But, but--gentlemen, pray sit down----" began the rear-admiral.
"Really this is most irregular."
He sat down resignedly as the officers pressed about the inventor and
Ned. In a few moments order was restored, and the two newly escaped
captives were telling their story.
"But how did you get back from the Sierra Madre Mountains so quickly?"
asked Captain Dunham, who was familiar with Cuba and had recognized the
location of the Pulsifers' hut from the inventor's description.
"Let Ned Strong tell that," smiled the inventor.
"Why, gentlemen, we--we borrowed Mr. Pulsifer's automobile," explained
the Dreadnought Boy.
"Good for you!" burst out Herc, who had been dancing about in the
background, hardly able to keep down his excitement. Of course,
discipline did not permit his greeting Ned just then, and he had been
on the point of exploding ever since his chum entered the room.
In the general excitement no one reproved the impulsive youth, who
turned as red as a winter sunset when he realized what a sad breach of
naval etiquette he had committed.
"Strong, stand forward," ordered Rear-Admiral Gibbons, as the inventor
took up and concluded the story of how they had missed their road, but
finally found their way into town, going first to a house occupied by
some friends of Mr. Varian's before proceeding to the hotel. At the
home of the inventor's friends they had got a wash and brush-up which
both stood sadly in need of. Ned's leg, besides, had required dressing.
It turned out to be, as he had guessed, only a flesh wound, but was
sufficiently painful, though not dangerous in any way.
In obedience to his superior's command, the young seaman took two paces
to the front and saluted, bringing his heels together with a smart
click, despite the pain his wound gave him as he did so.
"Strong," went on the admiral, "you have done Mr. Varian and the
United States Navy a great service. Had it not been for your quick,
intelligent work, it might have been that the Pulsifers and the others
implicated in this dastardly affair would have escaped. Mr. Varian
might not have been with us this morning. I congratulate and thank you
on behalf of the government and on behalf of the naval department and
officers of this squadron."
Ned's lips moved. Somehow he couldn't speak. Herc's face, bisected by a
broad grin, thrust itself forward among the officers till it appeared,
like a whimsical moon, between the elbows of Captain Dunham and the
rear-admiral.
"I shall see, Strong," went on the admiral, "that some signal notice
is taken of your clever, plucky work. You are of the stuff of which
real seamen are made and we want to encourage men like you in every
way possible. And now, gentlemen, as we are not within hearing of
Washington--or the papers--perhaps it might not be inconsistent with
the occasion to give three cheers."
"Oh, those crazy Americanoes!" exclaimed the little yellow-faced
Cubans, as three long, resounding naval cheers, with a zipping
"tiger," rang through the stagnant tropic air and went booming over
the water as far as the grim sea bulldogs of Uncle Sam, lying at anchor
off the town.