No one dared move; blanched faces stared down over the edges of the canvas hammocks; visions of disgrace, expulsion—worse, the felon's dock and hangman's noose, came clustering out of the shadows.
And then Day snored.
It was not a loud snore; nothing overdone or inartistic. Just the heavy, regular breathing of an innocent and tired boy asleep. That fellow had nerves of steel! Endurance, pent in frailer vessels, had just reached its limits when the huddled figure on the deck stirred, rolled out of its blankets, and, with another groan, rose to his feet. Day's solitary breathing became a chorus of snores, impassioned in their realism.
Windsails stood motionless, contemplating a massive bollard adjoining the ruins of his bed.
"That's what winded me," he said with the air of one who had solved a problem of some complexity. He must have come in contact with it as he fell. Then, slowly and deliberately he bent down, picked up the severed hammock lanyard and scrutinised it in the lantern light. In silence he made the end fast to the beam again, readjusted his blankets, and climbed ponderously into the hammock.
"Snore away!" he observed with vicious calm. "But there's some of you as will answer for this!"
There was in the captain's face that blend of sternness and faint surprise with which he always confronted malefactors. In this case there were arraigned before him all the recent inmates of the quarantine quarters.
"It is incredible to me," he was saying, "that any officer—any young gentleman about to become a naval officer—should so far forget himself as to perpetrate this outrage. I have personally examined the hammock lanyard, and there is no doubt in my mind whatever that it was cut—cut by a sharp knife. There was no one under the screen at the time with the exception of you young gentlemen." He paused and allowed his grave, handsome eyes to travel over their haggard faces. "I expect the cadet who did it to step forward and own up honourably."
No one moved. There was a pause. "I shall give you all three minutes to think it over," continued the captain, "and if at the end of that time no one has come forward, the whole lot will do instruction on board every half-holiday for the rest of the term." The captain drew out a gold watch, glanced at it, and closed it with a little snap. As if dismissing the whole business from his mind, he turned and began conversing with the commander in inaudible undertones. Finally, he drew forth the watch again and turned towards the cadets.
"You have fifteen seconds..." he said, paused, and closed the watch for the last time. Turning towards the commander, he nodded. "Dismiss the cadets."