"And did you accompany Mr. Frank Stonewell in an attempt to steal the examination last night, sir?"
"I am guilty of having made that attempt, sir."
"Mr. Blunt is also charged with being the person who proposed the three groans for the superintendent and commandant. Were you guilty of that, too, sir?"
"I was, sir."
When Bligh said this Captain Blunt was undoubtedly the happiest person in the room; he seemed to relax from the strain and tension he had been on for the past hour; and it is likely that a more crestfallen young man than Robert Drake would have been hard to find. Relieved as the latter was, he felt abjectly foolish. He had made a most needless sacrifice; he had jumped to conclusions and had been entirely wrong.
The commandant was silent for a few moments, apparently lost in thought. He finally remarked: "Mr. Bligh, do you know that this confession of yours will cause your dismissal from the Naval Academy?"
"Yes, sir," replied Bligh, simply.
"I suppose that you do this to save Mr. Blunt; was this your reason?"
"That was only an incidental cause, sir; the real reason was I wanted to do one decent thing at the Naval Academy. I have done so many things that I am not proud of; and I want to justify Frank Stonewell's belief that there is some good in me. I have had a hard time here, sir. I commenced wrong, and I have been punished severely—for months not one single midshipman at the Academy has spoken a friendly word to me. Then some weeks ago I met Frank Stonewell, and somehow I opened up my heart to him—I was in a bad way at that time; but he made me feel I was not hopelessly bad; it is hard lines, sir, to be made an outcast, a pariah, by one's classmates."