Darrin was already headed toward his friend's alcove, where Dalzell's cot lay. Page followed.
"The dummy," explained Darrin briefly.
Every midshipman at Annapolis, doubtless, is familiar with the dummy. Not so many, probably, are familiar with the doughface, which, at the time this is written, was a new importation.
Swiftly Dave and Page worked. First they turned down the clothing, after having hurriedly made up the cot. Now, from among the garments hanging on the wall nearby the two midshipmen took down the garments that normally lay under others. With these they rigged up a figure not unlike that of a human being. At least, it looked so after the bed clothes had been drawn up in place.
Then, glancing at the time, Dave Darrin waited—-breathless.
Farley hastened into the room without losing time by knocking. Under one arm he bore, half hidden, some roundish object, wrapped in a towel.
Without a word, but with a heart full of gratitude, Dave Darrin snatched out from its wrapping the effigy of a male human head. It was done in wax, with human hair on the head.
Dave Darrin neatly fitted this at the top of the outlines of a figure under the bed clothing.
Under the full light the doughface looked ghostly. In a dimmer light it would do very well.
"Thank you a thousand times, fellows," trembled Dave Darrin. "Now hustle to your own quarters before the first stroke of taps sounds."