"Pardon, whoever you are," came a gruff voice.
Dave, with his shoulder crippled a good deal, and paining keenly, halted as soon as his foot had touched bottom. It was dark down there, though some reflected light came from an incandescent light at a distance.
Dave waited, to peer into the face of the man who had stepped on his shoulder.
It was Pennington, of course!
"I'll take pains not to go down ahead of you again, or to follow you up a ladder," grunted Darrin suspiciously.
"Oh, are you the man on whose shoulder my foot rested?" asked Pennington, with apparent curiosity.
"Didn't you know it!" questioned Darrin, looking straight into the other's eyes.
Instead of answering intelligibly, Pennington turned and walked away a few feet.
"Perhaps that fellow thinks he's going to vent his spite on me in a lot of petty ways," murmured Dave. "If that is the idea he has in his head, he's going to wake up one of these days!"
Following the last midshipman came Lieutenant-Commander Forman.