_ CHAPTER VII. PENNINGTON GETS HIS WISH
"The scoundrel!" gasped Farley, his face whiter than any of the others.
Dave was already at the door, trying to force it open. But he might almost as well have tried to lift one of the twelve-inch guns of the battleship "Massachusetts."
"We're locked in--that's sure!" gasped Dalzell, almost dazed by the catastrophe.
"And what's more, we won't get out in a hurry, unless we can make some of our classmates hear," declared Dave.
For the next half minute they yelled themselves nearly hoarse, but no response came.
"What could have been that little cockney's purpose in playing this shabby trick on us?" demanded Farley.
"Perhaps the cockney thinks we're admirals, with our pockets lined with gold. Perhaps he and some of his pals intend to rob us, later in the evening," proposed Dan, with a ghastly grin.
"Any gang would find something of a fight on their hands, then," muttered Dave Darrin grimly.
All three were equally at a loss to think of any explanation for such a "joke" as this. Equally improbable did it seem that any thugs of the town would expect to reap any harvest from robbing three midshipmen.
Desperately they turned to survey their surroundings. The shed was an old one, yet strongly built. There were no windows, no other door save that at which the three middies now stood baffled.
"Another good old yell," proposed Darrin.
It was given with a lusty will, but proved as fruitless as the former one.
"We don't take the last launch back to ship," declared Farley, wild with rage.
"Which means a long string of demerits," said Dan.
"No shore leave to-morrow, either," groaned Darrin. "Fellows, this mishap will affect our shore leave throughout all the cruise."
"We can explain it," suggested Farley with a hopefulness that he did not feel at all.
"Of course we can," jeered Dave Darrin. "But what officer is fool enough to believe such a cock-and-bull story as this one will seem? At the very least, the commandant would believe that we had been playing some pretty stiff prank ourselves, in order to get treated in this fashion. No, no, fellows! We may just as well undeceive ourselves, and prepare to take the full soaking of discipline that we're bound to get. If we attempted this sort of explanation, we'd be lucky indeed to get through the affair without being tried by general court-martial for lying."
"Drake's anchor, indeed!" exclaimed Dan in deep self disgust.
"We ought to have known better," grunted Farley, equally enraged with himself. "What on earth made us so absent-minded as to believe that a priceless relic would be kept in an old shed like this?"
"We're sure enough idiots!" groaned Dan.
"Hold on there, fellows," interrupted Dave Darrin. "Vent all your anger right on me. I'm the great and only cause of this misfortune. It was I who proposed that we take up that cockney's invitation. I'm the real and only offender against decent good sense, and yet you both have to suffer with me."
"Let's give another yell, bigger than before," suggested Dan weakly.
They did, but with no better result than before.
"The launches are away now, anyway, I guess," groaned Farley, after consulting his watch.
"Yes, and we're up the tree with the commandant," grunted Dalzell bitterly.
"Yell again?" asked Farley.
"No," retorted Dave, shaking his head. "We've seen the uselessness of asking help from outside. Let's supply our own help. Now, then--altogether! Shoulder the door!"
A savage assault they hurled upon the door. But they merely caused it to vibrate.
"We can't do it," gasped Dan, after the third trial.
Considerable daylight filtered in through the cracks at top, bottom and one side of the door. Further back in the shed there was less light.
"Let's explore this old place in search of hope," begged Dave.
Together they started back, looking about keenly in what appeared to be an empty room.
"Say! Look at that!" cried Dave suddenly.
He pointed to a solid looking, not very heavy ship's spar.
"What good will that thing do us?" asked Farley rather dubiously.
"Let's see if we can raise it to our shoulders," proposed Dave Darrin radiantly. "Then well find out!"
"Hurrah!" quivered Dan Dalzell, bending over the spar at the middle.
"Up with it!" commanded Darrin, placing himself at the head of the spar. Farley took hold at the further end.
"Up with it!" heaved Midshipman Darrin.
Right up the spar went. It would have been a heavy job for three young men of their size in civil life, but midshipmen are constantly undergoing the best sort of physical training.
"Now, then--a fast run and a hard bump!" called Darrin.
At the door they rushed, bearing the spar as a battering ram.
Bump! The door shook and shivered.
"Once more may do it!" cheered Darrin. "Back."
Again they dashed the head of their battering ram against the door. It gave way, and, climbing through, they raced back to the pier.
But Dan, who had secured the lead, stopped with a groan, pointing out over the water.
"Not a bit of good, fellows! There go the launches, and we're the only fellows left! It's all up with our summer's fun!"
"Is it, though?" shouted Dave, spurting ahead. "Come on and find out!"
As they reached the front of the piers, down at the edge of a landing stage they espied a little steam tender.
"That boat has to take us out to the 'Massachusetts'!" cried Darrin desperately, as he plunged down the steps to the landing stage, followed by his two chums.
[Illustration: The Three Midshipmen Raced Toward the Pier.]
"Who's the captain here?" called Dave, racing across the landing stage to the tender's gangplank.
"I am, sir," replied a portly, red-faced Englishman, leaning out of the wheel-house window.
"What'll you charge to land us in haste aboard the American battleship 'Massachusetts'?" asked Darrin eagerly.
"Half a sov. will be about right, sir," replied the tender's skipper, touching his cap at sight of the American Naval uniform.
"Good enough," glowed Dave, leaping aboard. "Cast off as quickly as you can, captain, or we'll be in a heap of trouble with our discipline officers."
The English skipper was quick to act. He routed out two deckhands, who quickly cast off. Almost while the deckhands were doing this the skipper rang the engineer's bell.
"Come into the wheel-'ouse with me," invited the skipper pleasantly, which invitation the three middies accepted. "Now, then, young gentlemen, 'ow did it 'appen that you missed your own launches."
"It was a mean trick--a scoundrelly one!" cried Darrin resentfully. Then he described just what had happened.
The skipper's own bronzed cheeks burned to a deeper color.
"I can 'ardly believe that an Englishman would play such a trick on young h'officers of a friendly power," he declared. "But I told you, sir, the fare out to your ship would be half a sov. I lied. If a nasty little cockney played such a trick on you, it's my place, as a decent Englishman, to take you out for nothing--and that's the fare."
"Oh, we'll gladly pay the half sov." protested Darrin.
"Not on this craft you can't, sir," replied the skipper firmly.
Looking eagerly ahead, the three middies saw two of the launches go along side of the "Massachusetts" and discharge passengers. As the second left the side gangway the Briton, who had been crowding on steam well, ranged in along side.
"What craft is that, and what do you want?" hailed the officer of the deck, from above.
"The tender 'Lurline,' sir, with three of your gentlemen to put h'aboard of you, sir," the Briton bellowed through a window of the wheel-house.
"Very good, then. Come alongside," directed the officer of the deck.
In his most seamanlike style the Briton ranged alongside. Dave tried to press the fare upon the skipper, but he would have none of that. So the three shook hands swiftly but heartily with him, then sprang across to the side gangway, where they paused long enough to lift their caps to this stranger and friend. The Briton lifted his own cap, waving it heartily, ere he fell off and turned about.
"You didn't get aboard any too soon, gentlemen," remarked the officer of the deck, eyeing the three middies keenly as they came up over the side, doffing their uniform caps to the colors. "Hustle for the formation."
Midshipman Pennington was chuckling deeply over the supposed fact that he had at last succeeded in bringing Darrin in for as many demerits as Darrin had helped heap upon him.
"That'll break his heart as an avowed greaser," Pen told himself. "With all the demerits Darrin will get, he'll have no heart for greasing the rest of this year. It's rough on Farley, but I'm not quite as sorry for Dalzell, who, in his way, is almost as bad as Darrin. He's Darrin's cuckoo and shadow, anyway. Oh, I wish I could see Darrin's face now!"
This last was uttered just as Midshipman Pennington stepped into line at the supper formation.
"I wish I could see Darrin's face now!" Pen repeated to himself.
Seldom has a wish been more quickly gratified. For, just in the nick of time to avoid being reported, Midshipmen Darrin, Dalzell and Farley came into sight, falling into their respective places.
At that instant it was Midshipman Pennington's face, not Dave Darrin's, that was really worth studying.
"Now how did the shameless greaser work this!" Pennington pondered uneasily.
But, of course, he couldn't ask. He could only hope that, presently, he would hear the whole story from some other man in the class. _