A TERRIFIC EXPLOSION IN THE NIGHT.
Matt Randolph looked at the name of the club, as Spickles had written
it, and spelled it out so that all his crew could hear him. All of them
seemed to "take it in," or got its meaning from his boatmates. They all
laughed, with the exception of the coxswain, and he was inclined to
frown.
"It is easy to get at the meaning of such Greek as that, even if a
fellow has not fitted for college; and for my part, I should not care to
join a club with such a name," said he, with a look of disgust on his
face, which was also evident in his tones.
"I expected you to join us as soon as we found you, Matt," added the
captain of the schooner.
"You reckoned without your host, then.--Ready to give way!" said the
coxswain.
"Hold on a minute, Matt! Do you go to Sunday school now?" jeered
Spickles.
"Every Sunday."
"I am sorry for you. You are under the thumb of that old hunker who
calls himself the principal, and you don't know enough to catch the
straw when you are drowning. I gave the old hunks some!"
"And he took you by the collar, and put you into your boat, and served
you right. Give way!" added Matt.
"He's an old squalipop; and he will be likely to hear from me again! He
is no gentleman, and he treated me like an uneducated owl. I shall pay
him off for it, or my name is something besides Spickles," foamed the
skipper of the La Motte.
At this moment, and while the barge was backing away, one of the party
brought out a tray, on which were tall glasses filled with beer; and
each member of the Nautifelers Club took one of them.
"Here's to the Nautifelers Club! Lots of fun to them, and confusion to
old Squalipop!" shouted Spickles, at the top of his lungs, as he and his
companions drank off the contents of the glasses.
The barge darted away from the schooner, and was soon out of hail of
her. It was evident that the members of the club with the Greek name had
bargained for an extensive frolic of the coarsest sort, and most of the
crew of the Winooski were simply disgusted with the members of it. Some
of them had come from the city, and were more or less familiar with such
sights.
"I should rather like to join that club," said Tom Topover, when the
boat was some distance from the La Motte.
"You are not one of that sort of fellows now, Tom," added the coxswain.
"You have got beyond that kind of a life, and I hope you are strong
enough to keep above it."
"You know how to preach, Matt; but I don't want to sit under your
preaching. Those fellows are going to have a good time; and I think they
will enjoy it," added Tom pleasantly, as some of his old temptations
came back to him. "Do you know those fellows, Matt?"
"I know Spickles; but I never saw the others before, though I think they
behave like gentlemen compared with their leader."
"He is a jolly fellow," added Tom.
"Spickles's father was formerly a wealthy man in the city, and his son
stole a thousand dollars from him. Since that I have kept out of his
way, and I will not associate with him."
"What did he do with the money? Give it to the missionaries?" asked Tom;
and his companions noticed that he talked a good deal worse than he
meant sometimes, and could not entirely rid himself of his former ways
of expressing himself.
"He took a steamer to New Orleans, and spent his stolen money in
dissipation. When it was all gone, he had to come home before the mast
in a bark. He is a bad boy, and his father could not manage him. If he
had been sent to the Beech Hill School, it would have made a man of him.
I don't quite understand, though I can guess, how he can take such a
trip as the one he is now making; for his father lost his money, failed,
and is now at work as a clerk."
"Perhaps some of the other fellows have rich fathers," suggested Ash
Burton.
"It may be so, but I don't believe it. The sons of rich fathers, when
they want to go on a frolic, don't make such a fellow as Michael Angelo
Spickles their leader," added Matt.
"Is that his name?" asked Ash.
"They say his mother don't like the name of Spickles, and gave him a
high-sounding handle to it to smooth it off. I don't know any thing
about it, Tom Topover; but if I were a betting man, I would wager two to
one that Spickles stole the money which is used to pay the expenses of
the La Motte," continued Matt impressively.
"Then, again, perhaps he didn't," replied Tom.
"I think he did; and he didn't steal it from his father this time, for
Mr. Spickles did not have it. Now, Tom, whether he stole this money, or
not, he will certainly come to grief. In a month, a year, or ten years,
when you see him in the State prison, you will be glad you were not a
member of the Nautifelers Club," said Matt, as he consulted the paper in
his hand to recall the Greek word.
"You don't know what is going to become of that fellow any more than you
know what is going to become of me," added Tom.
"Certainly I don't know; but when you see a young fellow like Spickles,
drinking, dissipating, insulting a gentleman like Captain Gildrock, it
is easy enough to see where he is coming out. I used to drink beer with
Angy, as we used to call Spickles when he was a more decent fellow than
he is now, and I know something about it."
"Didn't you like it?" asked Tom.
"I can't say that I did: it always gave me the headache, and made me
feel more like a fool than I generally do. I used to drink it because
other fellows did. When I came up here, I did not want it; and I have
been a great deal better without it."
The Winooski went to the other side of the lake, where the coxswain
proceeded to train his crew for the work before him. Not a word was
spoken that did not relate to the practice, which was kept up till
nearly dark, when the barge returned to Beech Hill. As the boat
approached the mouth of the river, the La Motte was seen two or three
miles to the northward, standing down the lake. Matt hoped that she
would not again visit the waters in the vicinity of Beech Hill.
Matt reported to the principal when the boat had been housed, as all who
were in charge of expeditions, excursions, or business trips, were
required to do. He informed the captain of the departure of the La
Motte, and related to him what had taken place during the interview,
giving him the name of the club, as written on the paper.
"The Nautifelers Club is well named, if the word is Greek," said Captain
Gildrock. "I suppose they are merely engaged in a frolic, and I only
hope they will keep away from this part of the lake."
"They came from the northern part of the lake, for they chartered the
schooner at Rouse's Point; and I don't exactly understand why they are
going off in that direction again," suggested Matt. "They have not yet
been to the upper part of the lake, and it looks as though they did not
intend to do so."
"Perhaps they have drunk so much beer they don't know what they are
about," added the principal. "I should say that Spickles was a bright
boy, and it is a thousand pities that he is plunging into excesses."
At the usual hour all was still; and the students, who had had plenty of
exercise in the boats as well as in the shops, slept soundly in their
rooms. Insomnia was unknown at the institution, and all were active and
bright in the morning at an early hour.
Some of them awoke at an unusually early hour the next morning, though
it soon appeared that the current of events was not flowing in its
ordinary channel. The students and others had been awakened by some
extraordinary disturbance, or most of them would have slept till the
morning-bell roused them from their slumbers.
As nearly at three o'clock as the hour could afterwards be fixed, a
tremendous explosion, with a sound which equalled the report of one of
the yacht-guns on board of the Sylph, shook the buildings of the school,
and made the windows of the dormitory rattle as though a hurricane had
struck them. The very earth seemed to tremble under the effects of the
convulsion.
Suddenly startled from their slumbers, those who heard the sound, and
had been shaken in their beds by it, were unable to determine where the
report came from, or to form any idea of what had caused it. Perhaps
half the students in their rooms leaped from their beds, and the other
half were partially paralyzed where they lay by the shock.
Doubtless, if they had been awake, and had understood the cause of the
explosion, they would have enjoyed it; for the average boy delights in a
terrific noise. But they were literally and figuratively in the dark.
They could see nothing to explain the tremendous racket which had
startled them from their deep sleep, and not a sound followed the shock
to give them a clew to the strange event.
Some thought it must be an earthquake; others that it was a crash of
thunder which attended the striking of the lightning at some point not
far from them. Possibly some of them thought that a daring rogue of the
school was playing off a trick upon his companions; and more wondered if
one of the chimneys on the dormitory had not fallen over, and crushed in
the roof of the building.
It might be an earthquake, for there was no smell of powder, no
lightning in the sky; and no one was stirring in the building, as would
have been the case if the roof had been crushed. In fact, not even the
most intelligent and quick-witted of the students could assign any cause
to the event. They stood in their rooms, or lay in their beds, thinking
of it for a few moments, waiting for something else to come, some
after-clap, which would throw a ray of light on the subject. Nothing
came.
Some of the boldest and most energetic of the boys began to put on a
portion of their clothes, and unfastened their doors. As may well be
supposed, Dory Dornwood was one of the first to come out of the stupor
produced by the shock. He had not been awake more than five seconds,
before he had jumped inside of his pants, and opened the door of his
room.
He looked out into the long hall, but it was as dark as Egypt there; and
there was no glare of a fire in the building,--not a flash, not a sound
of any kind. He went back into his room, and opened the window. He
looked out on the lawn, but there was nothing in motion there. No key to
the enigma was within his reach.
But by this time, he heard a sound in the hall. He went to the door, but
it was too dark to see any thing. Some conspiracy on the part of a few
restless students might have been brought to a focus at this time, and
he deemed it prudent to light his lamp before he took any step. If there
was any thing to be seen, he wanted to see it.
If any conspirators were trying to knock down the dormitory, or
perpetrate a practical joke, he had a desire to know who they were; for
all such tricks were at a discount in the school. The principal had no
mercy for a practical joker when the feelings or the person of any
individual was imperilled by the so-called fun.
There was some one in the hall, beyond a doubt. It might be one of the
students, roused, like himself, by the explosion; or it might be an
evil-doer from outside of the fold. Dory opened the door again, and
thrust the lamp out into the hall, so as to light every part of it.
The person in the hall proved to be Matt Randolph.